This course examines the new legal issues that arise from Internet commerce. There are no prerequisites, and no legal knowledge is presumed beyond the first-year courses. After an overview of the various Internet business models, the class will examine the central role of trademark law in enabling companies to establish an online identity, and the law governing domain names, an important business asset that did not exist before the Internet. The course devotes substantial attention to contract, the basis of exchange in the online world as in the offline world, giving particular attention to some significant legislative initiatives and how they treat basic contractual features such as consent, as well as to the impact of the online environment on signatures and the statute of frauds. The course also devotes substantial attention to the legal regimes governing property in information and how property rights function in the online environment. It addresses copyright law, the law governing databases, and the role of technological protection of digital goods, as well as the patent system’s protection of methods of doing business. It also considers the overarching issue of jurisdiction in the borderless online environment, as well as issues of special interest to consumers, including consumer protection initiatives, the problem of data privacy, and the issues raised by unsolicited commercial e-mail (“spam”) and the topic of secondary liability for harmful or offending online conduct by users — a matter of particular concern to Internet service providers and hosting providers. Finally, the course explores forms of alternative dispute resolution that may be used in Internet commerce.