546 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM this radical advance is favouring a model of life characterised in essence by the continuous growth of distance communication and the extraordinary speed in the transmission of information, a fundamental protagonist of this new stage that continues to open up space. This way, the transition from the old industrial or post-industrial society to the incipient information society is taking place2. The main advantages of this phenomenon now seem obvious: thanks to it, citizens from all over the world can have access at any time, from any point or terminal, to information and documentation, current or past, thousands of kilometres away, from their seats and without the need to travel, with the savings, both economic and in terms of time, that this entails3. Similarly, there is an extraordinary opening of the scope of communication with other people on an international scale, without quantitative limitations of any kind, sectorial or spatial. And all this is accompanied by the birth of new and original entertainment opportunities arising at the dawn of this new cyber culture4. From a purely mercantile perspective, the application of these modern technologies to economic activities, more specifically to those taking place in the form of intermediation between production, on the one hand, and consumption, on the other, gives rise to the creation of a new form of commerce, different and alternative (which is not to say incompatible) from traditional commerce. This new development has become known as electronic commerce5. The benefits of these changes are not negligible either, neither in terms of their extension or intensity. For the consumer or user6, the implementation of this telematic development allows access to a greater number of goods and services. This, in tandem with the reduction of those costs for producers derived from the 2 CARRASCOSA LÓPEZ, V./RODRÍGUEZ DE CASTRO, E. P./POZO ARRANZ, M. A., La contratación informática: el nuevo horizonte contractual. Los contratos electrónicos e informáticos, Granada, Ed. Comares, 1997, pp. 435-436. 3 AMAR RODRÍGUEZ, V. M., “La interculturalidad tecnológica: inforricos e infopobres”, en Inmigración, interculturalidad y convivencia, 2002, p. 369, y “Tecnología y educación: el resurgir del cuarto mundo” en Historia Actual Online, núm. 8, 2005, p. 180; CABRERO-ALMENARA, J./AMAR RODRÍGUEZ, V. M./MONTANER, J., “Tecnologías de la información y la comunicación: más de lo mismo o más y diferente en educación”, en Tavira: Revista de ciencias de la educación, núm. 24, 2008, p. 132; RUBÉN BLANCO, J., “Sobre sujetos virtuales y mundos digitales: el caso de las comunidades virtuales”, en Política y sociedad, No. 30, 1999, p. 203; PÉREZ LUÑO, A. E., “Internet y Derecho”, en AA.VV., Informática y Derecho, Jornadas celebradas en Mérida, 1998, p. 727. 4 MIRANDA SERRANO, L. M./ VELA TORRES, P. J./PRÍES PICARDO, A., La contratación mercantil. Disposiciones generales. Protección de los consumidores, Madrid, Ed. Marcial Pons, 2006, p. 336; SUBIRANA, B./ VALOR, J./CARVAJAL, P., “Entender Internet: una teoría sobre la evolución de los mercados electrónicos vía Internet”, en Revista de Antiguos Alumnos del IEEM, No. 3, 2000, p. 87. 5 MIRANDA SERRANO, L. M./ VELA TORRES, P. J./PRÍES PICARDO, A., La contratación… cit., p. 336. 6 BOTANA GARCÍA, G., Comercio… cit., pp. 208 y ss.; BARRAL VIÑALS, I., “La mediación y el arbitraje de consumo: explorando sistemas de ODR”, en IDP: revista de Internet, Derecho y Política, No. 11, 2010, p. 5.
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