Regulating Cyberspace: The Policies and Technologies of Control

by Richard A. Spinello

This visionary book presents an interdisciplinary and cogent approach to the issue of Internet governance and control. By examining five critical areas in which the tension between freedom and control is most palpable―fair competition and open access, free expression, intellectual property, privacy rights, and security―Spinello guides the reader on a tour of the emerging body of law and public policy that has attempted to control the anarchy of cyberspace. In so doing, he defends the credo of Internet self-regulation, asserting that the same powerful and flexible architectures that created the Internet as we know it today can be relied upon to aid the private sector in arriving at a workable, decentralized regulatory regime. Except in certain circumstances that require government involvement, self-regulation is not only viable but is a highly preferred alternative to the forced uniformity that centralized structures tend to impose.

Beginning with an exploration of the Internet's most important values, including universality, free expression, and open access, as well as its promise as a democratizing force, Spinello considers how we can most effectively preserve those values and fulfill that promise while curtailing the social harms that vex Internet users. How do we arrive at the right mixture of technology and policy so that the Internet does not lose its promise as a liberating technology? In examining this question, Spinello evaluates such architectures of control as filters and rights management protocols, which attempt to keep out unwanted information and protect intellectual property, respectively. He explores how these and other technologies can be designed and used responsibly so that online social order can be sustained with a minimal amount of government intervention.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2002

About the author

Dr Richard A. Spinello (Ph.D., Fordham University) is an Associate Research Professor in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Reviews

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard A. Spinello's Regulating Cyberspace: The Policies and Technologies of Control (Quorum Books, 2002) is an excellent, well-researched primer for the major social issues that face the world as a result of the rise of the Internet as a fast, digital, interactive medium of communication. These issues, including monopolies, harmful speech, erosion of privacy, and intellectual property, are not by any means new or limited to cyberspace; rather, the Internet is just the latest context in which they must be examined. Drawing heavily from the work of Lawrence Lessig, Spinello argues throughout the text that the optimal way to regulate many of these “social ills of cyberspace” is through “the ethical use of code” (p.234). Even though the author, a former programmer and current professor of computer-related ethics, is clearly an expert in his field, he successfully keeps his book accessible to even a newcomer to the subject matter by outlining the history and properties of cyberspace and utilizing Lessig's framework for examining various methods of regulation before going into specific social issues that confront us in this Internet-enabled economy.