You have been warned

The future of internet law:

1. Going Global, Going Local
The Internet is experiencing its fastest growth in the developing world, where millions are connecting for the first time. For e-commerce businesses seeking to sustain significant growth, those foreign markets will become an increasingly important part of their business strategy. Tapping into foreign Internet markets presents some new challenges, however, including different languages, cultures, domain names, currencies, and legal rules. As e-commerce companies go global, they will simultaneously seek to localize their presence by customizing terms and conditions to suit national markets.

2. Developing World Demands a Say
Alongside increasing e-commerce opportunities, the developing world's embrace of the Internet will also have consequences for international technology policy. The developing world's desire to influence the Internet reached its peak in 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, where developing countries, backed by the European Union, sought to internationalize management of the global domain name system. While a compromise was ultimately reached, look for similar tensions to arise in 2006. The most likely candidates for a developed vs. developing world showdown include negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization over a new development agenda and at the new Internet Governance Forum, the body created at the WSIS event that will meet for the first time in Athens, Greece, in the spring.

3. The Changing Network
The emergence of a two-tier Internet was one of the top stories in 2005, as major telecommunications companies did away with the network neutrality principle and began to prioritize certain content and applications on their networks. The battle over the two-tier Internet will escalate in 2006, as consumer advocates look to the FTC and FCC for regulatory protection, while the telecommunications providers lobby Congress for legislative approval of new-look Internet connectivity.

4. Desperately Seeking Consumer Protection
The potential harms arising from the Internet and new technologies began to resonate with consumers in 2005, as more than 50 million people received notices that their personal information was subject to a security breach and millions more learned that their computers were vulnerable to hacker attack due to the installation of dozens of Sony CD titles containing faulty copy-protection. Look for consumers to argue for new statutory protections against these dangers in 2006, with Congress to consider national rules mandating disclosures of security breaches alongside emerging calls for regulations guarding against digital rights management misuse.

5. Borders and Barriers
While legislators and policy makers have been prone to view the "borderless Internet" as an insurmountable barrier to effective regulation, the combination of geolocation technologies and growing determination to address tough issues such as spam and spyware will lead to a greater willingness to venture into online regulation. The new Alaska spyware statute, which relies on geolocation technologies, may provide a model for other jurisdictions looking to address online issues but wary of overextending their regulatory reach.

6. The Internet Jurisdiction Struggle
This past year featured a series of noteworthy Internet jurisdiction decisions, including a pair from Canada involving the Washington Post and New York Post. Look for more of the same in 2006, as the jurisdictional limits of intellectual property law moves to the fore. First up will be the Kazaa case from Australia, where owner Sharman Networks is seeking to comply with a court order by limiting access to its software within Australia, but leaving the rest of the world untouched. An Australian court is expected to rule on the viability of the approach early this year.


:: AO