Elizabeth Casanova

Professor Martin

English 1102

Internet Regulation

Ever since the internet’s conception there have been concerns about our safety and

privacy. Ever evolving with society and expanding in size and shape. Almost all of us use the

internet in some compacity every single day of our lives. Whether it’s googling an insignificant

question we have or posting a picture on our social media; the internet has become a huge part of

our everyday routine. One question that has always been asked is: should the government step

into regulate our internet usage or should we be trusted as a society to self-regulate it? Some

governments are currently drawing up legislation to do exactly that. However, it is my belief that

we should be trusted to self-regulate our internet usage.

Privacy, from a young age, shapes who we are as we grow and develop. In the article,

“PRIVACY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET: SELF-REGULATION OR GOVERNMENT

REGULATION?” by Norman E. Bowie and Karim Jamal, they say, “Privacy enables us to

choose with whom we share personal intimate information. Our control over with whom to share

intimate information helps us to distinguish between friends and acquaintances.” They are stating

that we are autonomous beings that are capable of rationality, and responsible decision making.

Internet privacy has been a major concern for many. Tamara Dinev, et al state in the article,

“Internet privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance – An empirical

investigation,” “When asked what Americans feared the most in the upcoming century, a 1999

Wall Street Journal poll found that 29% of the respondents ranked erosion of personal privacy
first among a list of more frightening concerns including world war, global warming, and

international terrorism, none of which was ranked first by more than 23% of the respondents.”

As you can see, more people were worried about privacy than even the possibility of planetary

destruction or even death. This is how highly privacy is valued in this country. However, after

the events of 9/11, privacy became less of a concern, as there was more of an emphasis on our

security. In 2002, there was an attempt by the government to crack down and regulate the

internet. They enacted CSEA (Cyber Security Enhancement Act), this has allowed the

government to gather phone records, emails, and web-based transactions from the private sector.

This legislation was intended to stop illegal activity, such as terrorist acts before it could take

place. This drew a mixed reaction from the public, some even believing that the government had

overstepped. According to the same article, “This evolution in surveillance authority increases

the panoptic power of the government. Internet technology provides an almost unprecedented

opportunity for the unobtrusive surveillance of information related to personal interests. The

perception that information gathering and analysis may be occurring could result in behavior

modification regarding Internet use.” (Dinev et al) Since we have implemented the increased

government surveillance, we could have changed the way people use the internet. What people

feared over 20 years ago is happening in real time, right now.

There have been calls for some type of regulation, as mass amount of disinformation and

questionable data gathering have risen. The article, “Internet, Trust in Government, And Civil

Compliance” by Tobin Im, et al dives into the relationship we have with the government based

on our internet usage. “Thus, unlike in the past, where the spread of information was constrained

due to various media and political elites who performed gate keeping functions with regard to the

quantity and content of disseminated information, such safeguards are apparently diminishing,
which in turn is generating a waxing of non-state actor power.” I agree that we need to stop the

spread of disinformation in its tracks, however, this should be up to the individual sites to filter

out. There is also the issue of increasing internet usage vs. trust in government as Tobin Im et al

explains, “Individuals who spend more time on the internet will demonstrate lower levels of trust

in government.” (Tobin Im et al) This is a concerning effect of increasing internet usage, but

above all, we must ask why is this the case? A healthy distrust of the government is to be

expected from citizens. A different, but important issue, we are also facing is the collection of our

personal data by online companies and retailers. “The Internet's great promise of granular

information, however, is also its great risk. As people begin to understand the medium and its

information collection potential, alarm bells are ringing, not simply because of the amount of

information being collected, but also because of concerns that companies are not considering

consumers' privacy needs when using or disclosing this granular personal information.”

(DeGrazia Blumfield) I disagree with her position here. When we buy items online we accept the

risk of our personal data being taken. When you go to any website to shop or browse, a window

pops up asking if you would like to share cookies with the site. We have the option to decline

this request. We also have the option of using third-party sites, such as PayPal at checkout to

conceal our personal data, like our email address or physical address. It has been far too long and

too far gone for the government to step in and try to regulate at this point.

Another concern with internet regulation that should be discussed is how we would even

begin to regulate such a borderless, large society? Julia Hörnle says in her book “Internet

Jurisdiction Law and Practice,” “Jurisdiction is the foundational concept for both national laws

and international law as it provides the link between the sovereign government and its territory,

and ultimately its people. The internet challenges this concept at its root: data travels across the
internet without respecting political borders or territory.” This enforces the difficulty in

regulation and even prosecution when it comes to e-government and law. Another example of

just how vast and large the internet is comes from the article, “Privacy Please: Will the Internet

Industry Act to Protect Consumer Privacy Before the Government Steps In?” by Elizabeth

DeGrazia Blumfield, it states “The FTC is correct that the online market is growing quickly: 58

million people in the United States and Canada used the Internet in 1997, a 14% increase from

1996. Ten million of those users purchased goods and services online. Additionally, analysts

estimate that Internet advertising will balloon from $301 million in 1996 to $4.35 billion by the

year 2000.” This shows the massive amount of users worldwide that use the internet to purchase

goods and services daily. It is nearly impossible to regulate this amount of traffic. In the article

“Interaction Between States and Citizens in the Age of the Internet: ‘e-Government’ in the

United States, Britain, and the European Union.” By Andrew Chadwick and Christopher May,

they discuss the e-government used in Britain, the EU, and the United States. “The risks

associated with much government technology procurement should not be discounted as an

explanation for the timidity of e-government to date. In a number of cases – especially in the

U.K., where some high-profile ICT projects have gone over budget and have yet to deliver the

improvements in service originally promised – the utilization of new ICTs by central government

departments have not proved an unalloyed success.” It appears, so far, attempts to provide “e-

government regulation” have become a waste of time and money for government.

In conclusion, the evidence has shown that regulating the internet would not only be a

waste of money and resources at this point, but it would also be an invasion of our privacy. If

there was going to be government regulation, it should have been implemented 30 years ago at

the conception of the internet. To backtrack and try to regulate it now, would cause mass public
distrust and panic. Companies should be responsible for filtering out their own content and users

should also be taking responsibility for their acceptance and compliance of data gathering. We

should be able to be trusted to self-regulate the internet.

Work Cited:

Bowie, Norman E., and Karim Jamal. “Privacy Rights on the Internet: Self-Regulation or

Government Regulation?” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 3, July 2006, pp. 323–342,

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-ethics-quarterly/article/privacy-rights-on-the-

internet-self-regulation-or-government-regulation/82470263C7CB422ECC0A51FDB637A247,

https://doi.org/10.5840/beq200616340.

deGrazia Blumenfeld, Elizabeth. “Privacy Please: Will the Internet Industry Act to Protect

Consumer Privacy Before the Government Steps In?” The Business Lawyer, vol. 54, no. 1, 1998,

pp. 349–83.

Dinev, Tamara, et al. “Internet Privacy Concerns and Beliefs About Government Surveillance –

An Empirical Investigation.” The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, vol. 17, no. 3, 2008,

pp. 214–33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2007.09.002

Chadwick, Andrew, and Christopher May. “Interaction Between States and Citizens in the Age of

the Internet: ‘e-Government’ in the United States, Britain, and the European

Union.” Governance (Oxford), vol. 16, no. 2, 2003, pp. 271–300, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-

0491.00216.

Im, Tobin, et al. “Internet, Trust in Government, and Citizen Compliance.” Journal of Public

Administration Research and Theory, vol. 24, no. 3, 2014, pp. 741–63,

https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mus037.

Hörnle, Julia. Internet Jurisdiction Law and Practice. Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2021.