What is the validity of present law of jurisdiction in cyber law?
Answers
If the current legal system is to maintain effective and fair control over the Internet, courts all over the world will have to make a clear move toward a new test for jurisdiction, and a consistent test for resolving choice of law disputes. If courts could agree to exercise jurisdiction based on an effects test with a much stronger element of purposeful availment than exists in the current system, the current style of legal governance might be able to serve the Internet in an effective and consistent way, without the excessive and unpredictable elements that it currently suffers from. For the purposes of fairness, mere awareness that a site could be accessed at a location would not be enough to trigger jurisdiction; rather, in order to be subjected to jurisdiction in a place other than his domicile or its primary place of business, a party would have to display intent to reach the audience in that location through advertising or special targeting subject matter, or a positive awareness of an audience's locations by way of interactions involving the exchange of information about realspace location. Under such a system, a party would still be subject to jurisdiction in its home state or nation, but not in a foreign jurisdiction unless the party sought out an audience in that foreign jurisdiction. Such a system would put the burden on state and local authorities to prevent the viewing of illegal material and to focus on laws regarding the use of illegal material, rather than laws the provision of such material. As hey are today, transactions would be susceptible to the jurisdiction of the domiciles of all parties involved and any jurisdiction in which the transaction was definitively intended to have an effect.