"Companies have every right to feel uneasy about sharing their
data in eMarketplaces," said Jaap Favier, senior analyst at
Forrester's European headquarters. "In the off-line world,
companies sign non-disclosure agreements all the time. They
shouldn't settle for anything less in an eMarketplace - and should
take a 'no safety, no sales' attitude when joining eMarkets.
Importantly, the EU's strict digital-privacy laws apply to
individuals and not to companies, so corporate data provided to an
online exchange doesn't fall under EU law."
John Salmon of OUT-LAW.COM commented that Favier’s statement
could be slightly misleading. He said:
“In the off-line world, companies do not
sign non-disclosure agreements all the time. They sign them when
necessary. The same should be true on-line. If your business is
routinely buying new hardware or software on-line, you may not feel
the need to keep your transactions confidential. This would be
different if you are sharing confidential data.
“The EU’s data protection laws, or digital
privacy laws, as Favier refers to them, do indeed apply to
companies – but what I think he means is that corporate data
provided to an on-line exchange is not automatically protected as
confidential. This should be common sense: you would not submit
confidential information without ensuring that any recipients know
it is confidential – and this is when you would use non-disclosure
agreements or ensure that the terms and conditions include a
confidentiality clause.”
To make B2B exchanges succeed, Forrester is advising
eMarketplaces and their participants to self-regulate data
management in line with the EU’s E-commerce Directive, which
prescribes that buyers and sellers get to know each other's
identity and contractual terms before they complete a transaction.
Participants must set up disclosure levels to ensure that sensitive
data can't reach their competitors, while offers and bids get fully
exposed to potential partners.
“Again,” observes Salmon, “this is a common sense approach. No
business would transact with another business in the off-line world
without knowing who it was trading with and without examining the
terms and conditions of sale. The same is true in the on-line
marketplace.”
Forrester’s research of 40 European companies found that half of
the buyers and sellers worried about security, privacy and data
protection. 33% said that legal concerns had a “decisive” effect on
their trading volume. Against this, the most popular answer when
asked how much trust they have in eMarketplaces was “strong”.
