Governmental regulation versus self-regulation of the internet : the approaches taken by the European Union and the United States : a comparative study

Abstract

The question of how to regulate the Internet is subject to many discussions~ arguments. and debates. In these discussions, it is often so that people are using - ' key terms such as "Internet," "regulation," and most of all "self-regulation," in a variety of different ways, many of them confusing and inconsistent. The recurrent idea is that, "the Internet should not be regulated by the government, but instead should be self-regulated." Everyone is talking about self-regulation as the preferable alternative to government regulation, but as far as is evident from the discussions going on, "self-regulation" equals lack of government regulation. No affirmative definition or description of self-regulation, however, is forthcoming. What is self-regulation of the Internet? Who is the "self' that is regulating? What are the mechanisms by which the self regulates itself? Aren't both national and international governments already regulating the Internet? What approach does the United States take as compared to the European Union? How did the two approaches develop? Does self-regulation mean no regulation? And just what does it mean to "regulate" something? Does it mean to make laws? Enforce them? Punish people? Who is going to do it? And what part of the Internet are we regulating? The whole internet or only the World Wide Web? The architecture of the internet itself? Or just what people do when they are logged on? All these questions plague the debate surrounding Internet regulation. This dissertation will try to function as a starting place for answering some of these questions. lt will take into account the developments of Internet regulation within the European Union and the United States and show how they developed. It is an attempt to see what has been written about both, Internet and self-regulation, and find some sensible structure amongst the chaos.