The Internet's new borders

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

Hi all

An article from The Economist which was accompanied by another
article which could probably be found on their web site.

Cheers
David

The Internet's new borders

Geographical lines and locations are increasingly being imposed on
the Internet. Is this good or bad?

LONG, long ago in the history of the Internet—way back in February
1996—John Perry Barlow, an Internet activist, published a
“Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”. It was a
well-meaning stunt that captured the spirit of the time, when great
hopes were pinned on the emerging medium as a force that would
encourage freedom and democracy. “Governments of the industrial
world,” Mr Barlow declared, “on behalf of the future, I ask you of
the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no
sovereignty where we gather. You have no moral right to rule us nor
do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to
fear. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders.”

Those were the days. At the time, it was widely believed that the
Internet would help undermine authoritarian regimes, reduce
governments' abilities to levy taxes, and circumvent all kinds of
local regulation. The Internet was a parallel universe of pure data,
an exciting new frontier where a lawless freedom prevailed. But it
now seems that this was simply a glorious illusion. For it turns out
that governments do, in fact, have a great deal of sovereignty over
cyberspace. The Internet is often perceived as being everywhere yet
nowhere, as free-floating as a cloud—but in fact it is subject to
geography after all, and therefore to law.

The idea that the Internet was impossible to regulate dates back to
when its architecture was far simpler than now. All sorts of new
technologies have since been bolted on to the network, to speed up
the delivery of content, protect networks from intruders, or target
advertising depending on a user's country or city of origin (see
article). All of these technologies have mundane commercial uses. But
in some cases they have also provided governments with ways to start
bringing the Internet under the rule of local laws.

 

“The diffusion of the Internet does not necessarily spell the demise
of authoritarian rule”

 
The same firewall and filtering technology that is used to protect
corporate networks from intrusion is also, for example, used to
isolate Internet users in China from the rest of the network. A
recent report on the Internet's impact in China by the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), a private think-tank based
in Washington, DC, found that the government has been able to limit
political discourse online. Chinese citizens are encouraged to get on
the Internet, but access to overseas sites is strictly controlled,
and what users post online is closely monitored. The banned Falun
Gong movement has had its website shut down altogether. By
firewalling the whole country, China has been able to stifle the
Internet's supposedly democratising influence. “The diffusion of the
Internet does not necessarily spell the demise of authoritarian
rule,” the CEIP report glumly concluded. Similarly, Singapore and
Saudi Arabia filter and censor Internet content, and South Korea has
banned access to gambling websites. In Iran, it is illegal for
children to use the Internet, and access-providers are required to
prevent access to immoral or anti-Iranian material. In these
countries, local standards apply, even on the Internet.

To American cyber-libertarians, who had hoped that the Internet would
spread their free-speech gospel around the world, this is horrifying.
Yahoo! is appealing against the French decision, because it sets a
precedent that would require websites to filter their content to
avoid breaking country-specific laws. It would also have a chilling
effect on free speech, since a page posted online in one country
might break the laws of another. Enforcing a judgment against the
original publisher might not be possible, but EU countries have
already agreed to enforce each other's laws under the Brussels
Convention, and there are moves afoot to extend this scheme to other
countries too, at least in the areas of civil and commercial law,
under the auspices of the Hague Convention.

It is true that filtering and geolocation are not watertight, and can
be circumvented by skilled users. Filters and firewalls can be
defeated by dialling out to an overseas Internet access-provider;
geolocation can be fooled by accessing sites via another computer in
another country. E-mail can be encrypted. But while dedicated
dissidents will be prepared to go to all this trouble, many Internet
users are unable to change their browsers' home pages, let alone
resort to these sorts of measures. So it seems unlikely that the
libertarian ethos of the Internet will trickle very far down in
countries with authoritarian regimes. The upshot is that local laws
are already being applied on the Internet. Old-style geographical
borders are proving surprisingly resilient. 




Getting real
In some ways this is a shame, in others not. It is certainly a pity
that the Internet has not turned out to be quite the force for
freedom that it once promised to be. But in many ways, the imposition
of local rules may be better than the alternatives: no regulation at
all, or a single set of rules for the whole world. A complete lack of
regulation gives a free hand to cheats and criminals, and expecting
countries with different cultural values to agree upon even a set of
lowest-common-denominator rules is unrealistic. In some areas, maybe,
such as extradition and consumer protection, some countries or groups
of countries may be able to agree on common rules. But more
controversial matters such as free speech, pornography and gambling
are best regulated locally, even if that means some countries
imposing laws that cyber-libertarians object to.

Figuring out whose laws apply will not always be easy, and thrashing
all of this out will take years. But it will be reassuring for
consumers and businesses alike to know that online transactions are
governed and protected by laws. The likely outcome is that, like
shipping and aviation, the Internet will be subject to a patchwork of
overlapping regulations, with local laws that respect local
sensibilities, supplemented by higher-level rules governing
cross-border transactions and international standards. In that
respect, the rules governing the Internet will end up like those
governing the physical world. That was only to be expected. Though it
is inspiring to think of the Internet as a placeless datasphere, the
Internet is part of the real world. Like all frontiers, it was wild
for a while, but policemen always show up eventually. 


http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=730089

=====
David Goldstein
email: Goldstein_David@yahoo.com.au
phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile)

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