Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Public International Law and the Internet

Internationally accepted customs become part of Public International Law. If there is to be an ICT aspect of PIL, how can these customs be defined? Customs of the states which use the internet or customs of the states which provide most internet services? It should be noted that most internet services such as Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Friendster, Google, and Youtube all come from the United States. Are the customs of these companies in the United States the customs to follow? There may be no choice since internet users have no option but to adhere to the policies of these companies; even availing their services requires one to enter into a contract of adhesion. How can customs be formulated?

Even if it is possible to pinpoint international internet customs, there will still be social injustice because these customs will be heavily influenced by the customs of the United States for it provides most of the widely-used internet services.

To be frank, it seems the United States owns the internet industry, and the world will have no choice but to adhere to its customs.

No comments: