[governance] Do We Need An Internet Zoning Law?

[Roland Perry]

In message <48BC8302.58E16D1E at ix.netcom.com>, at 17:04:18 on Mon, 1 Sep 
2008, Jeffrey A. Williams <jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com> writes

>> A town (somewhere in the world, not in necessarily Texas) will close
>> down a local business if it's illegal either:
>>
>> 1) because (as you point out) any business might be illegal without some
>> sort of licence according to that town's rules or
>
>  Towns or states, or federal I believe you mean.

I don't care how far up the food chain they made the rule, as long as 
they are also the people who enforce it.

>> 2) because (and this was my original point) despite the fact that any
>> business *can* be started without a licence in that town [true in UK for
>> example], some sorts of business are nevertheless illegal because of
>> what they trade in.
>
>  Absolutely right but not complete. 2b.)  And if that "Trade" has 
>global reach than in accordance to USTR trade regulations, that 
>business would be subject to those rules/regulations/trade 
>agreements/extranious laws as well lets not forget.

If that's a bid for USA rules to work extra-territorially, you are 
getting into tricky ground. Although on another list I'm told that 
Florida courts won't enforce a European judgement against [telephone] 
spammers based there (and operating in contravention to European law), 
so it doesn't seem to be much of a two-way street.

>> >Hosting as to local, again depends as to legality of content 
>> >available, on the country and state/province in which the actual 
>> >hosting is.
>>
>> Good, we agree. So enforce it there first, please.
>
>  Not entirely, but mostly.  Hosting only deals with location of a
>DN based business, not it's reach on a global scale.  So enforcment
>is both internal to a US state, and a national government as such
>applies to existing trade agreements that may or clearly do apply,
>unless that DN based business is technically restricted in such a way,
>such as an extrAnet or IntrAnet that has no out of hosting country
>ability.

I'm having a lot of difficulty parsing that. The bottom line is this: if 
the business is illegal under some form of local (eg USA) law, then the 
first thing to do is have the local enforcers move in. If they can't 
enforce their own law in their own territory, then involving 
extra-territorial measures is unlikely to help.
-- 
Roland Perry
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