Best IT Law?

March 21, 2009 6:51 AM

Best IT Legal Regime? I've been looking at IT laws lately. There's been controversy over Australia's proposed blacklist, and maneuvering in the United States and elsewhere over Net Neutrality. The UAE prohibits VOIP, as do other jurisdictions, so...

what jurisdiction has the "best" general IT law? The United States seems to have no general law, just laws thrown together on an ad hoc basis to solve or address specific issues. Does any jurisdiction have a "truly great" law that balances technical innovation against the needs of the digital world to mesh with the analog (e.g., digital signatures). Is a law that specifies ISO compliance for cabling better than one that is silent on the issue? What are your thoughts? Examples? If you could write your own law, what would you put in it and why?

And for those who have familiarity with the laws of different jurisdictions, which one is the most comprehensive?

posted by tesseract420 to Law & Government (3 answers total)

I spent a summer researching this issue for the FCC, and can tell you that the EU has by far the most comprehensive laws. It addresses consumer rights with respect to contracts, data retention and privacy, number portability, quality of service, etc. It also has standards for universal service, the radio spectrum, competition regulation, etc. A summary of the relevant laws can be found here. I'm not aware of anyone that has anything nearly so comprehensive, and even if you don't like some of the policies--their copyright provisions leave something to be desired IMHO--they've got policies where most countries have none.

Most of these things are short on technical specifications and long on legal requirements, i.e. the law doesn't care what standard or technology you use provided you do x, y and z and not a, b, and c. This allows infrastructure and protocols to change and evolve as fast as possible. There isn't even a requirement of backwards-compatibility. Just minimum requirements for quality of service, contract terms, etc.

They even have provisions designed to combat monopoly/duopoly and encourage competition, but these don't work particularly well, because member states tend to try and privilege their own telecoms at the expense of foreign competitors, and the Commission has been rather ineffective at enforcing its will here. This is due in no small part to the fact that determinations of market power are basically left to national regulatory bodies who often drag their feet.

Again, even if you don't like EU policies, they have policies where most people don't.
posted by valkyryn at 9:07 AM on March 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Is your FCC study/research available?
posted by tesseract420 at 3:31 PM on March 21, 2009

Unfortunately no. Internal use only, etc. I don't even have access to it anymore. But enough has happened since then that it wouldn't be entirely relevant.

EurActiv has a pretty decent discussion of the state of things.
posted by valkyryn at 7:14 PM on March 21, 2009