Many Spiders,One Worldwide Web: Towards a Typology of Internet Regulation

This article examines emerging Internet law and policy from a comparative, international perspective. This complex, multi-cultural, global, information, communication, commercial and cultural platform that the Internet has become is gradually being adapted to the political, economic and cultural realities and interests of specific countries around the world. The United States, where the Internet was created, has advocated an Internet regulatory regime based on self-regulation. Though this principle has also been endorsed by some international agencies and non-governmental organizations, Internet self-regulation is neither desirable nor universally applicable. After a survey of patterns of Internet law and policy around the world, a five-part typology of Internet regulation based on the multiple political, cultural, social and economic contexts and realities around the world is proposed. They are: (1) Internationalist, (2) Neo-merchantilist, (3) Culturist, (4) Gateway and (5) Developmentalist. An attempt is made to show that these different regulatory regimes arise out of differential attitudes toward the Internet around the world.