Applying national legislation to the internet could be disastrous for e-commerce and bring the cherished First Amendment in the US constitution into conflict with other jurisdictions, according to John Place, general counsel of Yahoo!, who addressed the American Bar Association (ABA) last week.
In a presentation called ‘The Disappearance of Borders’ on 17 July, Place said: “In the analogue world, national borders act as effective jurisdictional limits, but these laws are ineffective in cyberspace.” He also said that the biggest threat to global e-commerce was the spate of recent attempts by individual governments to regulate the internet in their own jurisdictions.
