Doing Justice to The Web
Legally Speaking, What is the Internet?
By Catherine Sansum Kirkman
These days, what the Internet is—and what it is not—is more than a rhetorical question to ask at cocktail parties. Everyone knows by now that the Internet is a global public internetwork of computers that interface with each other based on the use of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Most know that the Internet runs on a "backbone" of data-transmission facilities that, in the United States, were turned over to private commercial carriers by the National Science Foundation when the NSFNet was decommissioned last year.
But things on the Internet are changing so fast, it is likely that in a few years the evolving Internet might be something different than what we know today. The same is true of the online world in general. Technically, everyone talking on the telephone today or watching cable TV is "online," but obviously that is not what the term is meant to signify. Instead, the term "online" is synonymous with using a communications line (wireless or wireline) with a modem and computer to send and receive data transmissions. What these terms will mean in the future is hard to say, given the rapid pace of technological advancements and resulting industry paradigm shifts.
This column is about the legal implications of what the Internet is: In other words, it's an exercise in looking at the Internet from a lawyer's perspective. There are a number of reasons for trying to do this. For instance, license agreements to put content, software, and technology on the "Internet" and "online" are being signed, sealed, and delivered at breakneck speed.
