THERE is a common notion that the dot.com bubble has burst meaning there is no longer an instant boom that any dot.com company
can expect soon after inception. Others opine that the bubble has just deflated. The scenario looks still promising for developing countries to catch up with globalisation. Business cannot gain competitiveness unless they open electronic network channels.Much of the growth of the Internet is now happening outside the United States. Apart from English which is the common language for contents on the Internet, other languages are soon catching up. As the Internet expands, the world is increasingly becoming smaller and smaller by the day. Legal concerns that affect us domestically within each
country also affect us internationally.For example issues regarding privacy, security, intellectual property protection,
jurisdiction still affect us, but in dramatic proportions. As we expand our use of computers from trade, to education to communication and collaboration, legalities behind our activities must be clearly understood. Consider the situation where online gambling is prohibited within a country. In the case when an online gambling site hosted in a foreign country is accessible beyond borders, is it interesting to question if one nation's laws can be applied across online businesses from another country. This issue is the core consideration of jurisdiction. Let us review a classic case which tested law based on jurisdiction. France has laws that prohibit the sale of memorabilia of the Nazi period. Yahoo Inc of US has an English auction website and they were hosting some such items of the Nazi era. In a legal case, a Paris Superior Court judge Jean-Jacques Gomez ruled that as that Yahoo Inc's website was accessible to the French, the auction sale of such memorabilia has to be stopped in France. He also concluded that France was competent to assert jurisdiction over Yahoo because the harm 'the display of Nazi-era artefacts' occurred in French territory touching French citizen.Three months time was given to Yahoo to find a technical means, to stop French web surfers from accessing over 1200 Nazi period items such as flags, belt buckles, etc. Failing to comply with this within three months, Yahoo would be subject to a penalty of $13,000 for every single day it defaults. Coming to think of it, would Yahoo be able to block the required access to only those Internet surfers from France? Is it possible to subject a US based company to the laws of France merely because it can be accessed in France?Some people of the legal fraternity even considered whether the French authorities could seize assets of Yahoo France (a subsidiary of Yahoo Inc, US) to pay for possible fines levied against Yahoo Inc. If local laws were to govern international businesses, then it is alarming to imagine the implication of Internet-based global reach being subjected to the laws of every country it can reach on the earth. If national laws could be so very stringent, then global e-commerce could simply come to a grinding halt. Another section of the society argued that what is prohibited in one country might be permitted in another country. Only such legal laws could protect the interests of the conservative nations and it is only an attempt to stretch the capability of technology for cyberspace regulation. In fact during courtroom arguments, technical experts mentioned that technical means of filtering based on geographical origin of online users did exist and that it would only block 90 per cent of the visitors. What makes the Internet challenge jurisdiction principles? Consider some of the following facts about the nature of Internet based commerce:w A product or service placed on the Internet reaches worldwide audience almost instantlyw Number of users accessing the Internet is growing phenomenallyw Sites hosted in one jurisdiction can be even targeted at users from a different jurisdictionw Web sites can be moved between servers led in different countries with minimal effort and complicationsw Sites can compose its contents by assembling them from systems hosted in different jurisdictionsw Locating users and websites is feasible but is not commonly used as it is not practical considering the speed of accessWith all the above facts in place let us see certain legal cases which have challenged laws based on jurisdiction in the next issue of Digital Oman.I