Internet in the United States

Internet privacy issues

The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently in flux and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Practices regarding the collection, use, storage, display, processing, transmission and security of personal information by companies offering online services have recently come under increased public scrutiny. The U.S. government, including the White House, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, are reviewing the need for greater regulation of the collection and use of information concerning consumer behavior with respect to online services, including regulation aimed at restricting certain targeted advertising practices. The FTC in particular has approved consent decrees resolving complaints and their resulting investigations into the privacy and security practices of a number of on-line, social media companies. The FTC has also revised the rules under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act effective July 1, 2013.

The White House published a report calling for a consumer privacy Bill of Rights that could impact the collection of data, and the Department of Commerce seeks to establish a consensus-driven Do-Not-Track standard that could impact on-line and mobile advertising. The State of California and several other states have adopted privacy guidelines with respect to mobile applications.

Jurisdiction

Judge Nancy Gertner wrote: “The Internet has no territorial boundaries. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, as far as the Internet is concerned, not only is there perhaps ‘no there,’ the ‘there’ is everywhere there is Internet access.” (Digital Equip. Corp. v. AltaVista Tech., Inc., 960 F. Supp. 456, 462 (D. Mass. 1997).

The Internet creates unique jurisdictional disputes because the technology respects no national borders. A large number of these disputes arose with the development of domain names. See, e.g., Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F. Supp. 1119 (W.D. Pa. 1997); Cybersell, Inc. v. Cybersell, Inc., 130 F.3d 414, 416 (9th Cir. 1997). For example, in Panavision v. Toeppen (141 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 1997)) a California company specializing in film equipment filed suit against Dennis Toeppen. The court found Toeppen’s domain name activities, described as domain
name hijacking, to be sufficiently related to his website to support jurisdiction. See also uBid, Inc. v. GoDaddy Group, Inc., 623 F.3d 421 (7th Cir. 2010), holding that out-of-state defendant’s website was an insufficient basis for general jurisdiction.

In the field of civil procedure, courts have had little difficulty in stretching the due process model of jurisdiction to cyberspace. See, e.g., Williams v. Adver. Sex, No. 1:05CV51, 2007 WL 2570182, at *6 (N.D. W. Va. 2007) (applying purposeful availment test to cyberspace); see generally A. Benjamin Spencer, Jurisdiction and the Internet: Returning to Traditional Principles to Analyze Network-Mediated Contacts, 2006 U. ILL. L. REV. 71, 96.

The problem of adapting the American minimum contacts doctrine to cyberspace is that no other country follows a due process model for personal jurisdiction, as said by MICHAEL L. RUSTAD, in INTERNET LAW IN A NUTSHELL, page 82 (2009).

Internet-related jurisdiction disputes began as companies created and established corporate identities online. To date, there is no international convention that addresses Internet jurisdiction, the choice of law, or the enforcement of judgments.

Courts are beginning to address whether the First Amendment shields pseudonymous file distribution on BitTorrent networks. See, e.g., First Time Videos, LLC v. Does, No. C 11-01675 LB, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42376, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 14, 2011), ruling that copyright owner of pornographic videos and photographs had good cause to unveil names and addresses of peer-to-peer users who distributed content without their permission.

Civil procedure will continue to evolve to address the economic and technological realities of the Internet. In First Time Videos, LLC v. Does, the Court rules that copyright owner had leave to “serve a Rule 45 thirdparty subpoena on each ISP” so it may obtain names and contact information of John Doe defendants and serve process.

New Internet cases and developments are being decided on a daily basis. (1)

Online Crime in California

by Rachel Glas

Internet crime loomed large in California in 2010. More perpetrators of online crimes reside in California than anywhere else in the country that year. Though California is home to 12 percent of the nation, it harbors 15.8 percent of the online perpetrators; Florida claims second place with 9.8 percent.

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2010 report, California complaints totaled 35,000, equal to 13.7 percent of all complaints in the United States. Financial losses in California added up to $46 million, with the majority of victims losing between $100 and $5,000. Men in California were much more likely than women to commit these crimes, accounting for more than three-quarters of the perpetrators, though victims in the state were evenly split between genders.

One unique problem is the borderless nature of these crimes, necessitating national and sometimes international cooperation from law enforcement agencies. Of California victims who knew the origin of the crime, only 39 percent said the perpetrator lived in the same state.

Statistics of Internet Crime in California

Top complaints from California victims of Online Criminals (Percent %):

• Nondelivery of merchandise/payment: 22.4%
• Identity theft: 16.2 %
• Auction fraud: 10.7 %
• Miscellaneous consumer fraud: 7.8 %
• Credit card fraud: 7.6 %
• Computer intrusion/hacking: 6.5 %
• Overpayment fraud: 4.1 %
• Advance fee fraud: 3.9 %
• Spam: 3.5 %
• FBI scams: 3.4 %

Source: Internet Crime Complaint Center, California IC3 2010 Internet Crime Report

Internet and Freedom of Speech

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled “INTERNET AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH”, the Internet is a worldwide network of networks that allows individuals to communicate in ways previously unimaginable. The two most popular forms of communication on the Internet are electronic mail and the World Wide Web. Through electronic mail, an individual can communicate with others”.

The Internet, Sexual Behaviour and the Law

Internet

Overview of Internet in relation to cyber crime: [1] The basis for routing data over computer networks linked to the Internet is the Generic Top Level Domain Name System (DNS). This system provides for universal resource locator (URL) addresses, for example, Web sites ending with familiar .com, .org, .gov, and .edu addresses, and maps numerical machine identifiers to geographic locations. This system was developed in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) with support from a California-based corporation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and in cooperation with foreign governments and entities including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding is the formal document that provides an international framework for ongoing administration and enhancement of the DNS. Policies contained in this document were developed in cooperation with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the DNS to promote Internet stability and robustness for all types of communications purposes. IANA works with advice and oversight of the Internet Policy Oversight Committee whose members represent an international body of key government, industry, academic and not-for-profit organizations. (McQuade, 2006, pp. 54–55)

Resources

Notes and References

1. By Paul R. Soto

See Also

• Types of Cybercrime
• Cybercriminal

Further Reading

Internet2 Web site: http://internet2.edu/; Bridis, T. (2005). Students face suits over use of ''Internet2.'' San Diego Union TribuneWeb page: http:// www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050413/news_1b13music.html; Internet History: From ARPANET to Broadband. (2007). Congressional Digest [serial online] 86(2), 35–64. Retrieved March 28, 2007, from Academic Search Elite; Internet; Internet World Stats Web site: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm; Leiner, B.M., Cerf, V.G., Clark, D.D., Kahn, R.E., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, D.,Wolff, S., et al. (n.d.). A brief history of the Internet and related networks. In Histories of the Internet. Retrieved November 24, 2007, from Internet Society (ISOC) Web site: http:// www.isoc.org/Internet/history/.

Resources

Notes

1. Based on the Article “THE PATH OF INTERNET LAW: AN ANNOTATED GUIDE TO LEGAL LANDMARKS”, by MICHAEL L. RUSTAD and DIANE D’ANGELO

See Also

• Freedom of Speech
• Internet Tracing
• Sexual Harassment Prevalence
• Electronic Commerce Law
• Crime Victims
• Copyright Internet Laws
• Anonymous Internet Defamation
• Internet Spyware
• Adware
• Internet Service Provider
• US House of Representatives Internet Law Library
• Hate Crimes

Further Reading

• The Internet in the Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior and the Law

Main Topics of Internet

This entry in the American Encyclopedia has been organized to address the following topics, among others:

• Internet : Advertising
• Internet : Consumer Rights and Protection
• Internet : Free Speech
• Internet : Internet Crime
• Internet : Internet Filters in Schools and Libraries
• Internet : Internet Privacy
• Internet : Internet Regulation
• Internet : Online Business
• Internet : Pornography