Timeline: The Development of digital trade agreements
Digital Trade Alliance | 3 October 2025
Timeline: The Development of digital trade agreements
As more sectors of the economy go online, “digital trade” is emerging as a vital area of interest, with many governments implementing specific digital trade agendas that purportedly aim to promote growth of the ecommerce ecosystem, promote growth of local businesses, and enhance access to information. Accordingly, the scope of digital trade agreements has grown significantly over the last two decades, with a number of countries now entering into specific digital related agreements.
Unfortunately, trade agreements have also become fertile ground for large technology companies to lobby for favorable provisions that seek to limit the manner in which countries can regulate them.
In fact, digital trade rules pushed by Big Tech companies often have very little to do with “trade”. Provisions favored by Big Tech companies instead seek to ensure that they can continue to enjoy the benefits of a (historically) deregulated digital ecosystem including by limiting public oversight of new technologies such as AI. Rather than forging public interest rules that would build trust in the digital economy, thereby benefiting both consumers and businesses, Big Tech companies have sought to use their vast resources and preferential access to governments and trade negotiations to try and establish a framework of global rules that seek to entrench their power, at the cost of consumer safety and people’s rights.
This timeline lists key events in the development of digital trade agreements from the late 1990s till date. It illustrates not only that the various rules favored by Big Tech companies (such as on free flow of data and disclosure of source code) are of relatively recent origin, but that many countries, including the U.S., are increasingly wary of entering into agreements that could limit their ability to regulate the technology ecosystem in public interest.
