I'm currently doing an essay on regulation of the Internet, but I can't seem to find out whether there are any existing laws governing the internet. I read that there are rules about defamation which apply online, is this true? If so, there is a great misconception that the internet advocates complete freedom of expression.

any help is greatly appreciated.

thanks.

I think the www is regulated by http://www.w3.org/

For .uk its nominet i think. www.nominet.org.uk

Sorry hon, havn,t got a clue,but hang around,they are a helpful lot on SF and someone will be able to help you.

I had to do something similar for a project a few years ago, I found that alot of the regulations aren't just for the internet but are appropriate such as the data protection act and copyright laws. Plus, I'm not sure if it's law or not yet, but there was a lot of talk about making websites accessible to disabled people, so sites must provide valid html that is compatable with screen reader software etc...

I'll have a look and see if I can find any of the stuff I did...

Regards,

Grant

The rules of defamation do apply online.

The 'free speech' thing probably came from years ago when most Net users were academics / computer scientists who were probably too buried in work to libel folks! :) Seriously, when I started using the Net the last thing on people's minds was libel; the first thing was making the darn thing work.

Anyway....the problem for regulating the Internet is that laws typically apply within jurisdictions - that is, countries or supranational bodies like the EU. An example is the law regarding Nazi Memorabillia that is in use in Germany. eBay may have users that sell such things in the US. Were a GErman user to access the US version of eBay, he would be exposed to products that are actually illegal to advertise in Germany.

Another issue is in such things as advertising Drugs Paraphenalia, such as Bongs, in the US. In some states it's legal, others it is illegal. So who's law applies if you put your web site in a hosting company in a place where it's legal and someone tries to buy from you in a state where it's illegal.

Taxation - such as sales tax and VAT - is also a messy area. Things like Data Protection, Patent Law, Copyright Law, Distance Selling regulations all apply to services and goods placed on teh Internet. The problems are usually to do with whose jurisdiction the law is applied in.

Libel and slander depend so much upon the place where the libel is deemed to have happened. Has it happened when the page is opened in a particular country? Or does it happen when the libellous pages are posted?

As has been mentioned - the UK has some fairly tough disability access laws. But these would almost certainly not be applied against a US company, even if the pages are viewed in the UK.

www.w3.org deals with the particular aspects of teh technical side of the World Wide Web.

Nominet deals with the issuing of domain names.

There is no world wide organisation that regulates the Internet at anything higher than a technical level, and even there it's more of a gentleman's agreement and a knowledge that you would have to adhere to technical standards or the whole thing will fail.

Try Googling for some stuff.

Joe