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Regulating Speech Across Borders: Technology Vs. Values, Matthew Fagin Apr 2003

Regulating Speech Across Borders: Technology Vs. Values, Matthew Fagin

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The disfavored status within international law of unilateral state-based regulations that target extraterritorial actors arises from the inherent challenges such actions represent to state sovereignty. In the context of the Internet, the complexity of choice-of-law analysis is heightened: regulations imposed by one state have the potential to effectively block communications to citizens of all states and undermine the conflicting regulatory aims of neighboring states. Early legal commentators built upon this cascading chilling effect of state-based regulation to proclaim both the futility and illegitimacy of state-based action in the online environment. Subsequent scholars have demonstrated the commensurability of state-based online regulation …


Introduction: The Yahoo! Case And Conflict Of Laws In The Cyberage, Mathias Reimann Jan 2003

Introduction: The Yahoo! Case And Conflict Of Laws In The Cyberage, Mathias Reimann

Michigan Journal of International Law

Three years ago, two French public interest groups, La Ligue Contre le Racisme et L'Antisemitisme (LICRA) and LUnion des Etudiants Juifs De France (UEJF), sued Yahoo! Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered near Santa Barbara, California, in the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris. The undisputed facts underlying the complaint were that: Yahoo! Inc. operated, inter alia, an auction website on which various Nazi memorabilia (such as flags, stamps, and military souvenirs) were offered for sale; the respective Yahoo! Inc. website was accessible in France; and the display of the Nazi memorabilia was illegal under French law. The French plaintiffs sought …


Enforcement Of Foreign Judgements, The First Amendment, And Internet Speech: Notes For The Next Yahoo! V. Licra, Molly S. Van Houweling Jan 2003

Enforcement Of Foreign Judgements, The First Amendment, And Internet Speech: Notes For The Next Yahoo! V. Licra, Molly S. Van Houweling

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Article begins with a review of the relevant rules governing enforcement of foreign judgments in the United States. Part II explains how courts have unpersuasively applied these rules when refusing to enforce foreign libel judgments. Part III then explains how the Yahoo! court adopted much of this faulty reasoning. Finally, Part IV explains the considerations that better justify judicial refusal to enforce speech-restrictive foreign judgments, especially those triggered by Internet speech. The Article concludes that the prospect that U.S. Internet speakers will choose to speak only to a U.S. audience-even when their speech would be legal everywhere-is the most …


Criminalization Of True Anonymity In Cyberspace, The, George F. Du Pont Jun 2001

Criminalization Of True Anonymity In Cyberspace, The, George F. Du Pont

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The question of whether a state or the federal government can create a narrowly tailored restriction on cyberspace anonymity without violating the First Amendment remains unresolved[...]The Supreme Court has not directly addressed the issue, but it may soon consider the constitutionality of criminalizing certain kinds of cyber-anonymity in light of the unique nature of cyberspace. This comment explores the various forms of anonymity, examines the First Amendment status of anonymity in and outside of cyberspace, analyzes relevant scholarly commentary, and concludes that a narrowly tailored legislative restriction on "true" anonymity in cyberspace would not violate the First Amendment.