Jurisdiction in the Global Internet Age

E-Jurisdiction: Jurisdiction in the Global Internet Age E-Jurisdiction (or the lack thereof)… At the beginning of a new century, the Internet Revolution is upon us. At the turn of the last century, when the Revolution was Industrial instead of Virtual, the courts and legislatures struggled to enact policies to keep pace with the changing times and technologies. Laws governing labor practices, trade practices, anti-trust regulations, and even intellectual property all developed in reaction to the surges of the new industrialized world. So too, in this new E-world, lawmakers are now attempting to quell the erosion wrought by the powerful Digital wave on our existing legal systems. Whether by adapting old mores to fit new paradigms, or by creating new standards with which to judge novel issues, lawmakers of the new millennium face overwhelming challenges in confronting the growing expanse of cyberspace. One such challenge is how to address the issue of Jurisdiction over disputes in a new global marketplace where the only boundaries are bandwidth. This paper will discuss some of the problems of E-Jurisdiction and present some possible solutions. "The unique nature of the Internet highlights the likelihood that a single actor might be subject to haphazard, uncoordinated, and even outright inconsistent regulation by states that the actor never intended to reach and possibly was unaware were being accessed. Typically, states' jurisdictional limits are related to geography; geography, however, is a virtually meaningless construct on the Internet." American Library Association v. Pataki, 969 F. Supp 160 (SDNY 1997). I. Problems with traditional jurisdiction analyses Traditionally, U.S. Courts have exercised jurisdiction only over those who had “minimum contacts” with the state in which the suit was filed. See International Shoe v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945). In an age where someone in Singapore can have “minimum c...