Internet co-regulation: European law, regulatory governance and legitimacy in cyberspace

Abstract

In the course of attending meetings and conferences on Internet law and policy, I inevitably meet officials who have this burning question in their minds: how do we regulate the Internet? The ‘should’ question has been asked and answered (‘yes’); the question now is ‘how?’ The follow-up question to how is: where should we look for rules? Implicit in this question is the rejection of US laws, for a range of reasons. Some reject US laws because of freedom of expression issues; they may need to curb racial and hate speech, for example. Others reject US laws because politically and socially, the USA is so different that to adopt American rules would be the idiomatic square peg in a round hole.