EBay Decision Shows the Fragmented State of Internet Law

A judge in the U.S. ruled Monday that eBay isn't responsible for identifying counterfeit goods sold on its Web site, a decision that came just two weeks after a judge in France ruled the opposite was true. It's another reminder that the law hasn't kept pace with the Internet.

The Internet is a global network. But it isn't governed by one global law - it's subject to many local and regional laws. The result is that in some countries it's legal to do things online - like some forms of computer hacking - that are illegal in others.

On the surface, it seems impossible to force a business based in one country to accommodate dozens of country-specific laws when it comes to the Internet. Unlike, say, shipping a product between countries which is the result of a strategic decision to manufacture or sell a product somewhere, business can't control where people are visiting a Web site from. In many cases, a business won't even have employees or an office in that country.

But while the Internet minimalizes geographic proximity, it doesn't do away with it completely. Even businesses that have one version of a Web site may keep data related to the site on tech equipment in more than one country. There's also technology that makes it possible to determine where each visitor to a Web site is located.

Going forward, it's possible some businesses will have to deal with contradictory international laws by using such technology to ensure that people in different countries have a different experience when they visit a site. The alternative may be accepting outlaw status in certain countries.

When it's a country like France, companies like eBay will most likely do whatever it takes to accommodate the law. But would the same hold true for Mauritania or Albania? What about a South Korea? Those are questions that businesses will most likely have to answer some day.