David Post's point is amply highlighted by the recent decision of the UK
courts in the Demon Internet case (Godfrey v Demon Internet Ltd [1999] 4 All
ER 342). Prima facie, it was a defamation case. However, it exposed some of
the jurisdictional problems encountered in trying to regulate the Internet.
As messages posted by US-based Internet service providers can be read
outside of the US, and a reader in the UK can have access to something
posted in the US, UK defamation laws have implications for the US even
though it has a different law: "This brings the real prospect of Internet
service providers, wherever they're located in the world, and whether or not
they're protected by the Bill of Rights in America, being harshly, robustly
and expensively in the British courts" (Lyall, 2000). Ultimately, however,
despite Post's point that mapping might ease jurisdictional issues, it is
unclear whether a UK libel judgement could ever be enforced in the US. There
are two cases in which American courts decided not to enforce an award given
in UK jurisdiction. They did so for constitutional reasons. In Telnikoff v.
Matusevitch, the US Court of Appeals noted the importance of the "free flow
of ideas and opinions on matters of public opinion" and determined that
British libel laws were "repugnant" to free speech in America (Priluck,
1998).

When Germany wanted to act against neo-Nazi sites it had to choose between
either completely cutting itself off from cyberspace, a choice with huge
costs, or to accept that the World Wide Web had subverted its laws. In the
Karla Homolka trial of 1994, a case involving multiple murders including
sexual assault and mutilation, the Canadian goverment was unable to enforce
an information blackout because Usenet postings in the United States were
also accessible in Canada. As Canadian authorities tried to censor Usenet by
removing access to the relevant newsgroups, users 'cross-posted' messages to
alternative newsgroups. An anonymous 'remail' list was even set up to notify
interested parties where new information could be found while keeping the
sender's identity concealed. Yet all this has not stopped some countries
from trying. For example, Singapore is trying to monitor all Internet
traffic in and out of the state. So far it has been unsuccessful.

Clearly then, the idea of a law of cyberspace is problematic - yet the
problem is not only that it can't be mapped in terms of jurisdiction. As
Jordan notes, mass non-compliance with the law is an option (1999: 135).
Would it be practical to incarcerate a massive amount of people who refused
to acknowledge cyber-borders? Would it be possible to ever completely deny
the flow of information when hackers, enthusiasts, etc., always seem to stay
one step ahead? Geographers may not have much to offer here.

Regardless, Post's example does indeed act as evidence of the role of
traditional offline power structures over cyberspace. And so we see it is,
in fact, subject to a plethora of jurisdictional authorities. Any law of the
Internet then must be relative to the country where it is being practised
and its sources are therefore the same sources as domestic law. However,
while this may suggest, correctly, that regulation of the Internet should be
a difficult matter, the Internet is in fact already highly regulated:
"Indeed, the inhabitants of cyberspace may be, at least in theory, the most
massively regulated individuals in the world in that, depending on the
nature of their activities, they may theoretically be subject to the
jurisdiction of virtually all of the world's legal systems" (Lloyd: 6).




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-----Original Message-----
From: Discussing ways of mapping and visualising Internet infrastructure and
Web space [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of David G.
Post
Sent: 25 April 2001 15:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: IP to geography

At 04:26 PM 4/22/01 +0100, martin dodge wrote:
>Hi,
>
>from my limited technical knowledge of IP stuff and discussions with
>various people in the field I don't think it is possible to geolocate AOL
>users from their IP.  One of the leading players in the field IPmapper
>even spells this out explicitly in their FAQ,
>http://www.ipmapper.com/customer/faq.shtml#Anchor-Can-30198
>
>Another database provider to consider is Matrix.Net (formerly MIDS). They
>have been in this business longer than anyone!
>http://www.matrix.net/products/ip_localization.html
>
>I have been thinking that it might be useful to develop and maintain an
>independent / Open source IP-to-geo database for researchers and
>non-profit projects. Any thoughts?

I've been lurking on this list for a while -- and just for the record,
thanks to Martin Dodge for setting this up and sending out a most
interesting stream of information.  Also for the record, I'm a law
professor who specializes in Internet-related stuff -- though there
probably aren't a lot of law professors on this list, I am of the
opinion that efforts to map the net will play an increasingly large
role in the legal landscape (as efforts to map new areas played large
roles in developing legal regimes in the past).

The impossibility of geolocating individual AOL users (or net users
from any virtual private network like AOL's) has *enormously*
significant implications for law.  The recent Yahoo case is a good
illustration (and is just the tip of the iceberg):  A French group sued
Yahoo for displaying Nazi memorabilia "in France" (which is against
French law).  The French court was persuaded that Yahoo could do the
necessary geolocation, and it ordered Yahoo (on pain of a 100,000 franc
penalty for each day of noncompliance) to 'filter out' users coming to
its website from within France.

This has pretty serious implications for the free flow of information
if you multiply it by each possible jurisdiction that might want to
impose this kind of filtering scheme on foreign website operators.
David Post

************************************
David G. Post     Temple University Law School and The Tech Center,
George Mason Univ. Law School
[log in to unmask]
215-204-4539 or 202-364-5010
http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost.html
http://www.icannwatch.org
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