Page 166 - Electronic Commerce

Selling on the Web

Professional Services
State laws have been one of the main forces preventing U.S. professionals (such as
physicians, lawyers, accountants, and engineers) from extending their practices to the
Web. Since most professionals are licensed by individual states, state laws can prevent 141
them from practicing their professions on the Web because online patients or clients
would likely be located in other states. If they were to offer their services online to
persons in other states, professionals could be charged with unlicensed practice in those
other states. State laws concerning the imputed location of service delivery are vague; it
can be difficult to determine exactly where a service provided online actually occurs. This
uncertainty arises because most state professional practice laws were written long before
the Internet existed.
Many medical, legal, and other professional practices allow patients to make
appointments online, and an increasing number of professionals do online consultations.
Most professionals are still reluctant to conduct elements of their practices on the Web
because they are concerned about protecting the privacy of their patients or clients online.
The Law on the Web site offers legal consultations on a variety of matters for residents
of the United Kingdom. Accounting professionals in the United States can be located
through the CPA Directory, and a number of legal referral sites can direct site visitors to
local attorneys. The online version of the well-known Martindale-Hubbell lawyer directory
is also available online at Martindale.com.
Although a large number of Web sites offer general health information, physicians
and other health care professionals have been reluctant to sell specific advice to specific
patients online. The difficulty of diagnosing medical problems without a physical
examination of the patient is a significant barrier to providing most types of health care
services online, but a growing number of physicians now offer online consultations to
patients with whom they have an ongoing, established relationship.
Cope Today was a pioneer in offering online therapy to patients in the United States.
The site connects potential patients with therapists licensed in that patient’s jurisdiction,
so the therapist providing the online consultation complies with state professional practice
laws. Online consultations are done by text or video chat. The site’s founder notes that
some conditions, such as depression or anxiety, might even be easier to treat online since
the patient does not need to leave home to see a therapist.

Free for Many, Fee for a Few
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, argued in 2004 that the economics of
producing and selling digital products is substantially different from the economics
of producing and selling physical products. In his books (see references to his work in the
For Further Study and Research section at the end of this chapter), he explains that
physical products benefit from the production of standardized versions that generate
economies of scale. Because each unit of production requires materials and labor, using
the same materials allows large producers to buy those materials at lower costs by
ordering in bulk. Labor costs can be reduced by training workers to do specific production
tasks efficiently. Since most of the cost of a physical product is in the manufacture of

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