Geographical Borders on the Web

Boise3981 writes "An article for the New York Times is talking about geolocation software, originally meant to deliver localized ads to web surfers, being used by some countries (and possibly even states or cities) to enforce local decency laws on the internet. In one instance a judge in France decided to fine Yahoo! $13,000 a day for displaying nazi memorabilia on its auction website. The article talks about web sites dumbing down their content to the lowest common denominator, lest they break some obscure decency law in some tiny village somewhere. fun."

Comments

Its a matter of where you have a location

[Zachary Kessin]

The French court had the ability to regulate Yahoo because Yahoo has a branch that operates in France. If Yahoo was operating only in the USA the French court could not have done much. You will note that the French (or German) courts have not shut down a large number of Neo-Nazi sites running in the USA. (Though I would love to see them go) Its because the people who run them have no pressense in France or Germany that can be made subject to a local court.

I used to work for DHL (The shipping company) they have a big book that comes out every so often that explains what you can and can not import into each country that they deliver too, over 200.

The Upshot of this is that Slashdot only has to follow laws of the USA and Whichever states (Mi, CA and MA maybe others) that they have offices or staff in. A French court would have a very hard time making a ruling stick agenst Slashdot.

Disclaimer IANAL.

Re:Its a matter of where you have a location

[Angst Badger]

You will note that the French (or German) courts have not shut down a large number of Neo-Nazi sites running in the USA. (Though I would love to see them go)

I would not. Not because I like Nazis, but because it's easier to keep track of them when they're out in the open, and because shutting them down would only serve to give them credibility, additional propaganda ("The Jews in the government are trying to suppress our message!"), and power.

Freedom of speech either exists or it does not. As soon as you start laying conditions on it, it ceases to be freedom and instead becomes permission, which is something else entirely. Your freedom to debunk Nazism as a pack of vicious lies depends on their freedom to spew those lies.

Faith in the power of truth to win out in open debate is a hard thing. But in the long run, the only thing that can stop truth is the absence of that debate. Countries like Germany, France, and Australia are only laying the groundwork for future resurgences of the very things they are, no doubt with the best of intentions, trying to suppress.

--

Geo-location an impossible task.

[Greg@RageNet]

Geolocation software has always been iffy at best; IP addresses are doled out based on network provider, rather then geo-location. The biggest nightmare of all for someone trying to solve this problem is AOL; who uses internal addresses for clients while all requests go through proxies. The biggest internet provider in the world and there's no way to geo-locate it's users.

Geo-location is nearly useful for technical uses; it's less than useless for the enforcement of juristictional directives.

What I don't understand is why more businesses don't just outright ignore courts that have no juristiction over them issuing rulings that are rediculous on their face for anyone with even a cursury knowledge of how the internet is pieced together. I think bowing to rediculous demands now is just going to result in the demands made becoming more outlandish and the application of these demands to smaller organizations who cannot afford to fight them will become more widespread.

-- Greg

Destroy the Web.

[Alien54]

The only solution for all these folks, is to cut the wire between them selves and the rest of the world.

The list of all the things people are offended by goes on like you would not believe.

But they want all of the benefits of world wide connectivity.

Heck you see it even here on Slash all of the time. Someone takes an unpopular stand, say, heaven forbid pro Microsoft, and watch the flame throwers come out of the wall.

But tolerance is what makes the web. If you cannot be tolerant here, is there any hope out there?

Or can only the party line have access?

The web is segmenting bit and piece as the technology is developed to separate everyone from everyone else based on "the social norm" and the community standard. The final outcome is this, to destroy the web, for the public good, inorder to save what is the best of the web, for the greedy few.

[ptuogh]

The lowest common denominator

[Vuarnet]

The article talks about web sites dumbing down their content to the lowest common denominator, lest they break some obscure decency law in some tiny village somewhere. I havent read the article yet (and I'm not planning on registering to the NY Times, thank you), but...

I recall something I read once on Mad Magazine: the schools are lowering their education standards in order to help the underachievers, and thus turning whole generations into underachievers.

Give a troll a comment, and he'll flame and bitch for a day. Give a troll a dumbed-down Internet, and he'll flame and bitch for life.

Re:Lowest common denominator?

[bobthemonkey13]

"Dumbing down" may be a bit snobbish, but 100% true. Here's why:

1. The good ol' government passes a law, basically enforcing geolocation as a means to uphold local "obscenity" standards.
2. The website hosters try this new-fangled software, find out that it doesn't work worth a <censored in this geographic area>, and give up.
3. But the stupid law lives on, forcing webmasters to meet the most conservitive standards possible.
4. As a result, everything that might be obscene is pulled, for fear that someone in a conservitive town might access it.
5. The web solidifies into a ball of solid <censored in this geographic area>.

Almost anything thought-provoking, interesting, or insightful will be offensive to someone. What remains after all of that is thrown out is utter crap and fluff.

It won't happen

[CyberDawg]

This will never be workable.

First, the use of VPNs and VLANs makes it just about impossible to find people. I am currently connected to my employer's network, behind their firewall, despite being over an hour drive away at my home. I could just as easily be across the country. You have no way of telling where my notebook computer is connected. Until IPv6 is deployed, this will only get more common, as will use of NAT (network address translation) and PAT (port address translation), both of which make it impossible to locate a system by IP address.

Secondly, proxy servers make it easy to dodge geographical constraints, for those who wish to do so.

Third, ISPs often offer 800 numbers in addition to the local POPs. How is anyone supposed to know where you are when you're dialed up through an 800 number?

A local government does not (and should not) have jurisdiction over the Internet any more than it has jurisdiction over satellite television and radio broadcasts from neighboring towns or countries.

Maybe if we hide the issue it'll go away.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Get this - there were, and are, Nazis.

No amount of regulation saying, "Hey, you can't look at pictures of Nazi stuff!" is going to change that. You cannot hide something and think that nobody will find out about it or talk about it. It is only through education and discussion that we can deal with things like the Holocaust and the rebirth of Naziesque movements. If you never talk to your kids about Nazis, and your school never talks about Nazis, and and your country never talks about Nazis, guess who will talk to your kids about Nazis? That's right, Nazis. I'm not sure they'd have what we'd call "a historically accurate portrayal of events", either. Banning the discussion of something like this is exactly what Nazi recruiters want - people who have never discussed the issue, and have never thought critically about Nazis.

I know it's not about Nazis, but about whether a country should block access to certain materials based on their laws. However, it's nonsensical for the same reason. If you try to shelter someone from a hot topic through ignorance, you only end up hurting those you try to protect. If we talked to our kids more about adult stuff on the web, they'd be more protected from it. If we talked to our friends about cults, we'd be more protected from them. You can't block someone from researching a topic. If they really want to find out about it, they will. When they go to find out about it, the only ones freely giving the information will be the exact same people you're trying to banish.

International Issues

[nate1138]

This does raise all kinds of issues about doing business on the web. Just because my company is located somewhere no longer restricts my customer base to nearby regions, or even customers who speak the same language. How will these issues be addressed in the future? I can only hope that it doesn't get to the point where some kind of international board determines what kind of data goes where. However, with anonymous proxy servers and such, I suppose that this would be very hard to implement. The lawyers must really be scratching their heads over this one. ;-)