Internet Intermediary Liability: WILMap, Theory and Trends

Abstract

To better understand the heterogeneity of the international online intermediary liability regime — with the collaboration of an amazing team of contributors across five continents — I have developed and launched the World Intermediary Liability Map (WILMap), a detailed English-language resource hosted at Stanford CIS and comprised of case law, statutes, and proposed laws related to intermediary liability worldwide. Since its launch in July 2014, the WILMap has been steadily and rapidly growing. Today, the WILMap covers almost one hundred jurisdictions in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania. After introducing the WILMap — and the surrounding landscape of recent projects related to intermediary liability — this article aims at discussing advancement in intermediary liability theory and describing emerging regulatory trends.

Keywords: intermediary liability, online platform, internet, intellectual property, copyright, defamation, hate speech, private ordering