International and National Regulation of the Internet A. Michael Froomkin University of Miami School of Law
[email protected] Submitted Dec. 8, 2003 Although the title for this paper set by the organizers of this Round Table discussion is "the international and national regulation of the Internet," the instructions which accompanied this title explained the topic as "the governance issues regarding ICANN" and "similar issues existing with the national registry activities". The tension between the broad title and substantially narrower-seeming subtitle reflects something real about the contemporary nature of regulation of the Internet and its infrastructure. I. Introduction: Three Spheres of Internet Regulation Broadly speaking, Internet regulation today can be conceived of as involving three related spheres: Direct regulation of the internet infrastructure itself; regulation of activities that can be conducted only over the internet; and, regulation of activities which can be, but need not be, conducted over the Internet. The first sphere: Direct regulation of the internet infrastructure itself, including a. the standards of communication, b. the equipment used to provide and access Internet communication, c. intermediaries engaged in the provision of Internet communications, e.g. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) The second sphere: Regulation of activities that can be conducted only over the internet and which have no significant off-line analogues. An example is the regulation of anonymous online communication via anonymizing re-mailers. The third sphere:. Finally, there is the regulation of the enormous category of activities which may or may not be conducted over the internet, e.g. e-commerce in both tangible and intangible goods.