Things are getting complicated (legally speaking) on the internet. The Spamhaus/e360Insight mess opened a window into just how messy things can get - and how much worse they could become.

In that case, e360 sued Spamhaus in Illinois. Spamhaus didn't even bother to show up - being a UK based outfit, they told the court, in effect, to suck eggs. The court eventually ruled in favor of e360 (good luck collecting). It's at that point that things got messy. e360 noticed that the suit had had no impact, so they went to a Federal court and asked a judge to force ICANN to toss Spamhaus off the net. Now, ICANN said that they couldn't do that even if they wanted to (the domain registrar in question is Canadian based).

Right now, Spamhaus has lawyered up in Illinois and is appealing the case. This isn't the end of the problem though - Jim Rapoza of eWeek notes that things could (and probably will) get worse:

For example, European executives of online gambling companies have been arrested when they've traveled to the United States for breaking U.S. gambling laws. It probably won't be too long until we see an executive from a prominent American Internet company arrested while abroad for something that wouldn't be a crime here (for, say, selling books or movies online that are banned in certain countries).

The problem is that the web oozes right past national jurisdictions. The US can outlaw online gambling, but a European site (globally accessible) can still offer it. Likewise, free speech here in the US protects various odious things which are illegal in Europe. Those things are accessible online though (hello, Google book indexing). I think Rapoza's right - at some point, a US exec will deplane in Europe and get arrested for illegal content, in the same way that the US Dept of Justice has gone after gambling execs - and the stunned incomprehension of the Dept. of Justice will be the only entertaining part of that.

I don't pretend to have an answer to this, but an escalating stream of arrests in airports isn't it.

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