For years, IT managers worked under a cloud of suspicion that they were surplus to requirements. Managing directors, chief executives and other bigwigs Ã, most of whom couldn't change a fuse Ã, saw IT as a drain on resources with little obvious business benefit. Better to outsource, they thought, and have someone external to sue when things turn out late, over-budget or inadequate.
With this mindset, few considered that many IT problems arise due to insufficient business commitment, or that outsourcing might raise as many problems as it solves.
Of course, e-commerce did wonders to change priorities. During the late 1990s it became obvious, even to the most blinkered technophobe, that IT could make a big difference to competitiveness. IT managers were at last taken seriously as business people.
Unfortunately, a steady drip-drip of complex legislation looks set to dissolve all that progress. By making e-business a legal minefield, lawmakers are creating plenty of reasons for business leaders to ask, once again, if IT would be better off excised from the body corporate.
To recap, last year saw the introduction of the new Data Protection Act in March, IR35 tax rules in April, the Electronic Communications Act in May, plus the RIP Act, Human Rights Act and Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations in October. That's just in the UK; the EU kept equally busy. The Electronic Commerce Directive, signed in June, promises to unwind a significant new spool of red tape.
Meanwhile, last year saw old laws being applied in inventive new ways. The Royal National Institute for the Blind quite reasonably pointed out that the Disability Discrimination Act applies to Web sites. The French courts quite unreasonably applied domestic laws to foreign Web sites. The Germans prosecuted Dutch firm LetsBuyIt.com for offering customers a discount. And only recently, European copyright law was used to stop one company linking to another's Web site.
Then there are patent infringements lurking behind apparently trivial developments such as one-click ordering, the threat of new EU language rules applying to Web content, the prospect of paying corporate tax on overseas servers, and lingering doubts over the legality of online sales contracts in many countries.
Even efforts to ban spam, which appear reasonable enough, could excavate fresh pitfalls for unwary technologists. If you are working at home and are sent the company newsletter, have you been spammed?
As I've noted before, for many firms the tide of legislation and attendant responsibility means increasing risk. The various tasks of monitoring the law, assessing actual activity and ensuring compliance are becoming ever more complicated, and the danger of prosecution is therefore rising.
This year will no doubt bring a wave of prosecutions under the new laws, and yet more innovative cases under the old.
As business leaders wake up to the increased risk, the pressure on IT departments to justify their existence can only build. After all, those that keep IT in-house forfeit the option of transferring the blame and suing a service provider if they themselves are sued by someone else. And with no third party to blame, it will probably be the IT manager who is forced to carry the can for e-commerce infringements.
