OPERATIONALIZING THE LAW OF JURISDICTION: WHERE IN THE WORLD CAN I BE SUED FOR OPERATING A WORLD WIDE WEB PAGE?

摘要

The concept of personal jurisdiction―the power of a court to decide the rights of a person and issue a binding judgment―is becoming increasingly complex in cases involving the World Wide Web. The two approaches courts currently use to assert personal jurisdiction are inadequate and inconsistently employed, leaving individuals who perform services or conduct business over the Web without clear answers about where they may be haled into court. The "Zippo test" fails to consistently take an accurate account of the complete picture of the contacts generated from Internet use, and the "Calder effects test" is not applicable in all cases. This article outlines a "Web-contacts" approach as a consistent way to operationalize "purposeful availment" for personal jurisdiction based on contacts via the Web.