In Search of the Self: Charting the Course of Self-Regulation on the Internet in a Global Environment

Abstract:     
Each day, societal demand grows for some form of control or supervision over something that appears inherently beyond governance: the Internet. The gulf between community aspirations and the perceived limits on government capacity forces each entity, industry and regulators, to conduct a thorough and painstaking search for an appropriate solution. The resolution to this dilemma requires the innovation of regulatory design for the Internet. Without flexibility and responsiveness, traditional law and regulation cannot adequately address the transnational, intangible, and ever-changing Internet space. The Internet challenges "classic patterns of regulation" in terms of the identity of the rule makers and the instruments used to establish rules (Reidenberg 1996). With some notable and largely unsuccessful exceptions, the initial attempts at Internet regulation have tended to move away from direct legal control and towards more flexible variations of "self-regulation."

Number of Pages in PDF File: 23

JEL Classification: K00

working papers series