The regulation of cyberspace: Computer technology, law, and self-regulation on the Internet.

摘要

This dissertation examines legal issues arising from the regulation of cyberspace. By examining market regulation, copyright, free speech, electronic privacy, and cyberdisputes issues with respect to the regulation of cyberspace, it suggests that although the nature of cyberspace itself requires some rules from the real world to be remodeled so that cyberlaw concerns could be tackled properly, most current legal concepts from the real world will remain unaffected by a transition to cyberspace if they are carefully interpreted and applied. Among all the legal regimes already available in the real world, a contractual regime would be particularly useful for the regulation of cyberspace. Moreover, the evolution of a system of international customary law, based on rules already enforced informally in cyberspace, should be encouraged and further developed. More significantly, the power of technologies and the architecture of cyberspace would come with an empowering capacity of self-regulation. The benefits of controlling online behavior through the constraints imposed by software codes should not be ignored at all while we are trying to develop a regime for Internet governance. However, the development of a legal regime for this transnational field could be slow and painful both for local authorities in the real world and people in cyberspace. At least before a clear consensus as to how cyberlaw should look like, which indubitably would take a long time and a lot of patience, emerges and becomes acceptable by all local authorities, some efforts to make legal rules from the real world translated successfully into the electronic space, including a certain degree of international cooperation, are still worthwhile for a regulatory regime in cyberspace to sustain over time. Also, in order not to discourage online activities, certain comity between the real world and cyberspace would be indispensable as the governance regime for cyberspace evolves.