Laws Governing Internet Law
Internet Law, or cyberlaw, refers to the large spectrum of communications through which Internet users utilize. Since Internet Law can traverse several state boundaries, as the Internet represents an enormous international community, it remains up to each set of distinct state laws to decipher the legality or intended purpose of the issue at hand. The biggest issue with composing comprehensive Internet law is the separate legal fields it encapsulates in direct relation to the specific state laws of the nation’s governing body. Also involved in common formulation of domestic Internet law is privacy concerns and freedom of speech, both separate legal issues all together.
• State laws play a large role in the formulation of Internet law. Take for example an individual wishing to purchase a product from another sovereign nation or even state. Not only do local state laws apply to the situation, but also the state laws where the server that handles the purchase apply. Lastly, the state laws where the company resides also has legal prerogative to maintain their Internet law. The situation as described composes the nature of jurisdictional law in relation to Internet law. All parties to the transaction are accountable to only their specific state laws, but also subjected to the constraints of working internationally.
• Free speech in Internet law poses its own set of obstacles. Many nations outright block certain content, while others filter it through state recognized domains. The common denominator of Internet law and free speech again reduces to the separate state laws that govern all concerned parties. An interesting situation arises when considering the international constraints of contemplating free speech; what happens when an article is published in one country about a resident of another country where entirely different viewpoints on free speech and Internet law exist? No current means of adjudication exists to handle this type of concern.
• Privacy concerns also loom large in Internet law, where a number of cases have been brought in front of judges dealing with information obtained from semi-private networking sites. For example, if there is a case investigating a possible murder situation and there may be pictures on a suspects semi-private networking site that incriminate said suspect, does an accusatory body require a warrant or can they simply access the page through a shared friend or similar situation? Many states have dealt with this situation in different fashions, but the Supreme Court is yet to deal on the constitutionality of such paradigms.
Internet law and the various types of law that compose it, creates a complex web of situations that require the entire international community to address. Even in America, state laws handle Internet law mostly in the aforementioned jurisdictional fashion and require a stronger consensus on federal laws guaranteed throughout all the states.
