When is a Consumer Not A Consumer?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1989.tb02821.x |
| Date | 01 March 1989 |
| Published date | 01 March 1989 |
| Author | Diane R. Price |
MAR.
19891
NOTES
OF
CASES
245
will be appropriate. This should also cover the situation where the
hacker adds information in the form of computer graffiti. A civil
law action based on breach
of
confidence could apply where the
hacker has accessed and used confidential information such as a
governmental forecast
of
fluctuations in interest rates. Copyright,
too, can provide remedies, especially if the hacker has made
capital out
of
the information he has gleaned. Both confidence and
copyright can be used against third parties if the circumstances are
right.
Should the law be changed
to
cater better for hacking? The Law
Commission conclude that the general criminal law is sufficient to
deal with most forms
of
computer misuse.” It would certainly do
no harm, in principle, to create a specific offence
of
computer
hacking but it may be difficult to know where to draw the line,
should the offence be confined to computer equipment or extended
to
cover other forms
of
industrial espionage? It is a little early to
say yet but perhaps the best approach would be to allow the
present body
of
law to be developed in a sensible fashion by the
judiciary. After all, what the hacker is doing, forgetting the
technology for a moment,
is
looking at or copying or destroying
information he has no right
of
access
to.
If the information was
stored on paper and kept in a locked cabinet, a person doing any
of
the above things would soon find that the law has sharp teeth.
We should not be deceived by the mysteries
of
the technology, a
hacker is, essentially, doing the same things.
In closing it should be said that Messrs. Gold and Schifreen
should have been charged with abstraction
of
electricity and
criminal damage, the latter because the messages they left were a
form of graffiti. If they used or planned to use the information they
read or divulged it to a third party, they could have been sued for
breach
of
confidence. It was their good fortune to have been
charged with the wrong offence.
DAVID I. BAINBRIDGE*
WHEN
IS
A
CONSUMER
NOT
A CONSUMER?
A
party to a contract does not deal as consumer, in accordance
with the provisions
of
section
12(l)(a)
of the Unfair Contract
Terms Act
1977,
if
he makes a contract in the course
of
a business
or holds himself out as doing
so.
The interpretation
of
the phrase
“in the course
of
a business” has recently come before the Court
of
Appeal in the case
of
R&B Customs Brokers Co. Ltd.
v.
United
Dominions Trust Ltd.‘
I5
Working Papcr
No.
110,
Thc Law Commission,
H.M.S.O.
1988.
Scnior Lccturcr in Law, Staffordshirc Polytcchnic.
’
119883
1
W.L.R.
321,
C.A.
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