[governance] If web-platforms are "criminally responsible for

[Eric Dierker]

Gentlefolks,
 
It must always be held at the forefront that there is a masterful difference between the theory of law - which is generally the law itself,,,, and the enforcement. Enforcement takes a practical approach and generally the incentives keep the criminals a few steps ahead of the techniques of "Law Enforcement Agencies" LEAs. Drug interdiction and prevention and enforcement and ingenuity keeping ahead is just the same as the net.  Hysterical political comments are meant to produce political capital not reach solutions.
 
Some would say Wyatt Earp was wrong. Others that he is right. (that would be the "wild" West rather than far.

--- On Thu, 3/4/10, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:


From: Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com>
Subject: Re: [governance] If web-platforms are "criminally responsible for
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 10:13 AM


In message <4B8EC258.3030507 at polito.it>, at 21:11:04 on Wed, 3 Mar 2010, J.C. DE MARTIN <demartin at polito.it> writes
> I was mainly thinking of the many politicians that in Italy and France (and perhaps elsewhere) claim that the Internet is a lawless place, that "Internet is like the Far West" and that, of course, "we must put an end to such unlawful situation". Hence, the HADOPI law and other enlightened proposals.
> 
> A reaction to that is to remark that it is simply not true: all the provisions of the civil and criminal code, in fact, apply online as they apply offline. There may be issues with enforcement, but certainly not with lack of laws and rules - at that (national) level.

While I agree that "normal" laws also apply to the Internet, these often prove to be worthless when victim, perpetrator and service provider are in three different jurisdictions - which is more serious than a simple problem with "cross border enforcement", because sometimes the law itself differs in these three places.

There are also significant issues of interpretation, eg when local laws ban things such as "advertisements" (perhaps for tobacco or child-adoption) and although advertisements in newspapers and on TV are usually clear cut, online there is quite some debate about it (even for example saying that a domain name could be an advertisement):

www.adopt-a-child-here.com

[Please let us not discuss the merits of such bans and interpretations, but they do exist].

And some issues don't seem to be well covered by existing laws - I heard about one today, where 'hackers' have attacked a gaming site and "stolen" virtual items such as extra weapons and personas that the gamers had bought from the hosting company. Good luck in getting anyone to easily determine responsibility for a remedy in this case.

In the face of all this doubt and uncertainty, it's little wonder that legislators try to dream up new laws; although they rarely pause to think whether laws are very successful in changing behaviour.
-- Roland Perry
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