Issues with the Internet: Socially and Legally

Few would disagree that the Internet has become an important part of the daily life in American society. Its use is often taken for granted by the estimated 50 million Americans now online. Many Americans use the Internet to stay in touch with friends and family or to make new friends through chat rooms. While the Internet provides unlimited opportunities for meeting others, these opportunities can be both useful and dangerous.

One of the more direct ways that the Internet facilitates social meetings is through online dating services. Online dating makes it easy for busy or isolated people to meet others with similar interests. According to Jupiter Research, "in 2003 more than 17 million people viewed online personal ads and more than 2 million paid for a personal ad." Moreover, many people have met and married through online dating services. For conversation and companionship without romance, the Internet provides opportunities for people to discuss hobbies and shared interests. Fantasy football, stamp collecting, books, and politics are only a few topics one can chat about online. In fact, the sole function of some Web sites is to provide a forum for discussion. The politically minded have opportunities to discuss politics in Internet chat rooms. Many sites provide a forum for people to debate and even to organize to protest a government action or to show support for a candidate or cause.

The Internet also provides help for those seeking support or comfort: For those grieving the loss of a loved one, for instance, Legacy.com offers guest books where grief-stricken families may read condolences left by friends or family members from far away. These guest books also serve as meeting places where bereaved visitors connect and share their tragedies.

Although the Internet offers a variety of useful ways for people to connect with others throughout the world, it can also be dangerous or just unpleasant because some people use it as a tool for deception. For example, some users lie about their background, marital status, and physical condition on Internet dating sites. In fact, the once meteoric growth in online dating has begun to flatten out, with many people choosing not to renew their membership.

Unfortunately, the Internet can also be used by the unscrupulous to prey upon the unsuspecting in violent ways. Pedophiles lie in wait in children's or teens' chat rooms, sometimes luring them to meet in person. Once a child has taken the bait, he or she is often kidnapped, abused, or raped. Pedophiles and sexual predators are not the only threats on the Internet. Racists and hate groups also use Web sites and discussion groups to spread their message of hate to young people. Jupiter Research shows that "in 2001 there were an estimated twenty-eight hundred hate group Web sites encouraging violence and hatred toward people of color, Jewish Americans, and gays."

Another group of dangerous sites is those that encourage the development of mental illnesses such as anorexia, bulimia, and self-mutilation. These sites offer tips to young women and teens for successfully starving or hurting themselves and provide positive reinforcement for such behavior. These sites also contain chat rooms or message boards on which these unhealthy users learn further ways to hurt themselves.
Many praise the Internet as a tool that offers nearly unlimited information at the click of a mouse. However, given the dangers of the Internet described above, users need to exercise caution and self-control.

As the Internet has continued its emergence from a research network to a largely for-profit enterprise, commercial owners of World Wide Web (web) sites have concentrated much of their efforts on searching for revenue models that allow them to profit from Internet dealings. This commercialization of the Internet has raised challenges for the law in at least two ways. First, "the search for a profit-generating revenue model has challenged the customs or 'netiquette' that effectively ruled the Internet when it was dedicated to research" (Jupiter Research). The question for the law is whether those customs should constitute the legal rule in a commercial environment. For example, the web was built for the purpose of enabling hypertext capabilities, allowing one site to hyperlink (link) to and access another. In this way, users could make sense of the great mass of data contained on the Internet. Linking was both accepted and encouraged when the Internet was a research network. However, on the commercial Internet, some site owners have contended that before employing a link, the linking site must seek permission from the web site to which it wishes to link.

The second challenge to the law lacks a similar frame of reference to netiquette. As new technologies have emerged allowing even more manipulation of data than that anticipated when the Internet was established, commercial site owners have attempted to limit the use of such technologies by others, particularly when such use impacts revenue. The issue for the law in this context is how to address this new conduct without any guidance from netiquette and under legal principles designed for a physical rather than cyber world. For example, technology that allows framing of other sites is a relatively recent innovation, lacking any established netiquette to provide some insight in conducting the legal analysis. A number of commercial site owners have objected to the framing of their sites, contending that such framing effectively misappropriates their content.

The legal answer is by no means clear and commentators hold widely diverging opinions. It is likely also that different courts will arrive at different results. It will probably be some time before the law is unified, offering consistent, predictable solutions.

Hyperlinking and framing are just two of the Internet practices which plaintiffs are challenging. Neither is clearly illegal under existing legal doctrine, nor is it clear that either should be. The uncertainty of the current public law of copyright and trademark may lead parties to seek redress under the private law of tort. If misappropriation claims are unsuccessful under a Second Circuit view of the world, plaintiffs might try to use a cause of action like trespass to limit unauthorized access. Additionally, parties may attempt to order their relationships using the private law of contract to set the terms of access and use of a site. Thus, even if hyperlinking and framing were to survive challenges under the intellectual property statutes, they may be actionable under private law. The question of the relationship between the public and private law is likely to play an important role in deciding the shape of the Internet, regardless of whether the particular conduct involved is hyperlinking, framing, or some technology not yet developed.

Sources:
Jupiter Research, Fencing Cyberspace: Drawing Borders in a Virtual World, 82 Minn. L. Rev. 609 (2001).