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Free Speech on the Global Internet:
The Role of E-Commerce

by
Harinder Singh Khangura
B.Sc., University of Toronto, 1997
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
Master of Science
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Department of Computer Science)
We accept this thesis as conforming
to the required standard
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
The University of British Columbia

October 2001
Harinder Singh Khangura, 2001
Abstract
The Internet has truly become a worldwide phenomenon in recent years, with more
and more countries coming online every day. The new global economy that the Internet
enables is the main catalyst behind this embrace of the Internet by even the most closed
societies. However, the wide variety of material available on the Internet presents a problem
for legislators all over the world, and as a result a broad range of free speech policies have
been adopted by governments. The focus of this thesis is to find possible relations between
the e-commerce concerns that a particular country has and the free speech policy that it
chooses. Having these relations can help to predict how a free speech policy will change
over time.
The thesis starts with a description of blocking and filtering, as that is central to the
free speech policies in many countries. Next, a survey of the free speech policies and ecommerce statistics for countries from all major regions of the world is presented. This data
is analyzed to determine how e-commerce concerns can affect the free speech policy of a
country. Finally, trends on how free speech policies can change over time due to economic
factors are outlined.
Table of Contents
Abstract
ii
Table of Contents
iii
Acknowledgements
vi
1 Introduction
1.1
Free Speech and Censorship
1.2
E-Commerce
11
2 Blocking And Filtering
12
2.1
Introduction
12
2.1.1 Private Blocking
12
2.1.2 Filtering
14
Problems with Blocking/Filtering
16
2.2.1 COPA Commission
17
Filtering Legislation
18
2.3.1 Legal Positions on Filtering in the U.S.
18
2.3.2 Filtering Around the World
22
Summary
23
2.2
2.3
2.4
3 Survey Of Countries
24
3.1
Introduction
24
3.2
Asia
25
3
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.2.1 China
25
3.2.2 Hong Kong
30
3.2.3 India
32
3.2.4 Malaysia
34
3.2.5 Pakistan
35
3.2.6 Indonesia
36
3.2.7 Singapore
37
3.2.8 Philippines
38
3.2.9 South Korea
39
3.2.10 Sri Lanka
40
3.2.11 Vietnam
41
3.2.12 Russia
41
South America
42
3.3.1 Argentina
42
3.3.2 Brazil
43
Middle East
44
3.4.1 Saudi Arabia
44
3.4.2 Israel
45
3.4.3 Iran and Iraq
46
3.4.4 Jordan
47
Africa
48
3.5.1 Nigeria
48
4
3.5.2 South Africa
49
3.6
Australia
50
3.7
Europe
54
3.7.1 European Union
54
3.7.2 Sweden
55
3.7.3 United Kingdom
56
3.7.4 Germany
57
3.7.5 France
60
3.7.6 Spain
61
North America
63
3.8.1 Mexico
63
3.8.2 Canada
64
3.8.3 United States of America
65
Summary
68
3.8
3.9
4 Analysis
69
4.1
Introduction
69
4.2
Categories of Effect
69
4.2.1 Large Effect
70
4.2.2 Moderate Effect
72
4.2.3 Negligible Effect
75
4.3
Timeline of Control
77
4.4
Summary
79
5
5 Conclusions
81
Bibliography
84
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance of my supervisor, Dr.
Richard Rosenberg. He allowed me to form my own opinions, while always providing
valuable insight and helpful pointers that were instrumental to the completion of this thesis.
The second reader, Dr. Alan Mackworth, provided valuable feedback to help clarify my
arguments.
The support of my family during this time was tremendous. Even though they were
thousands of kilometres away, it always felt like they were by my side. My friends - from
both ends of the country - made my time as a Grad student the most enjoyable years of my
life.
HARINDER SINGH KHANGURA

The University of British Columbia
October 2001
Chapter 1
Introduction
The Internet has in its brief history been dominated by the more economically
developed countries that were quick to embrace the technology; however, in recent years the
Internet has truly become a worldwide phenomenon. Countries all over the world have
acknowledged the importance of the Internet to their social, cultural, and most importantly
their economic development, and have rushed to provide their citizens with basic access.
The anarchic nature of the Internet in its present form presents quite a dilemma for
most countries, as the wide variety of material available on the Internet does not always fit
into their concept of socially acceptable discourse. Nations attempt to limit access to
unacceptable content in a variety of ways, but this need to limit speech on the Internet must
be carefully balanced with the desire to tap its economic potential.
This thesis outlines the above conflict in many countries around the world. In
particular, it attempts to find a relationship between the e-commerce concerns that a country
may have and the free speech policy that it chooses. Finding such a correlation is important
as it can help to explain and/or predict how online speech policies will evolve over time.
Intuitively, having a free and open Internet experience for the citizens of a particular country
should be conducive to a thriving Internet marketplace, but how much these economic
concerns affect free speech policies is not well understood.
The Internet is still a relatively new phenomenon on the global scene, and as such
there has not been much scholarly work done in the areas that this thesis is interested in.
Thus most of the research material for this thesis has been gathered from the Internet itself.
Sources include reports published by organizations around the world, news reports, and other
relevant web-sites. Many organizations such as the Digital Freedom Network (DFN), the
Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), and others have studied and described the free
speech policies of countries in an attempt to lobby for keeping the Internet free. Reports
published by such organizations mainly focus on censorship issues and do not generally take
the e-commerce landscape into consideration.
The remainder of this chapter is devoted to defining concepts central to this thesis:
free speech, censorship, and e-commerce. Chapter 2 describes the types of blocking and
filtering technology that is increasingly being mandated for use by Internet users, as well as
the problems associated with this technology. Chapter 3 contains the survey of free speech
policies and e-commerce outlook for a wide variety of countries throughout the world. This
raw data is analyzed in Chapter 4 in order to determine possible relations between ecommerce concerns and online speech policy. The conclusions drawn are given in Chapter
5.
1.1 Free Speech and Censorship
The right to freedom of expression has been recognized as a fundamental one for all
citizens of the world. In fact, Article 19 of the United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration
9
of Human Rights states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any medium and regardless of frontiers. [91] Free speech is
the exercising of this right. Each type of media has its own issues with regards to free
speech; so when the term is used in this thesis it is mainly limited to the exercising of the
right to freedom of expression using the Internet. Whether this use is through e-mail, the
world-wide web, or other Internet technology is not relevant.
Censorship, as it pertains to this thesis, is the act of controlling the circulation of free
speech. Censorship exists in some form in every country; no country has free speech in its
purest form. Conflicting rights of individuals force the curbing of some kinds of speech. For
instance, even the most open of societies would agree that individuals do not have the right
to create and disseminate child pornography because it violates the rights of the children; so
that particular type of speech is banned. As it pertains to the Internet, governments are most
concerned with material such as obscene speech, hate speech, and in many cases
controversial political material. Censorship of this speech can take many forms, some of
which are: passing Internet-specific laws criminalizing these types of speech, applying laws
that exist in the off-line world to the Internet, using government portals to block access to
restricted speech, and forcing citizens to use blocking or filtering technology. The extent to
which governments restrict speech on the Internet varies widely, as will be discussed in
Chapter 3.
10
1.2 E-Commerce
E-commerce is a new phenomenon that has resulted from the rapid

commercialization of the Internet in recent years. Strictly speaking, the definition of what
constitutes e-commerce changes as new forms of doing business on the Internet emerge. For
the purposes of this thesis: E-commerce is much more than buying and selling on the Net: it
is about doing business electronically, both within enterprises and externally, using
computer networks and mobile communications. [75] There are many forms of ecommerce: business-to-business (by far the largest form presently found), business-toconsumer, consumer-to-consumer, and government-to-consumer.
E-commerce is
predominantly a business issue, enabled by information technology. [75] The ability to do

business electronically has resulted in the development of new business models at a rapid
pace; which models will prevail is still being decided.
It is up to governments to facilitate e-commerce by providing the necessary
infrastructure. This can take the form of laws protecting intellectual property, privacy
legislation, as well as providing the basic communications connectivity to allow people to
access the Internet. If and how governments change their Internet free speech policies to
facilitate e-commerce is the focus of this thesis.
11
Chapter 2
Blocking and Filtering
2.1 Intr oduction
Blocking and filtering regimes, in theory, allow users who do not want to be
confronted with certain material, as well as agencies that want to prevent users from
accessing specific classes of information, a facility to achieve that control. The material that
people most want to avoid contact with are pornography, violence, hate, and in general
anything that society deems unpleasant or threatening. With parents demanding a method to
control the Internet access of their children, filtering and blocking technology has become a
growth industry in many parts of the world. As outlined in the next chapter, many countries
have invested large quantities of money and time into developing filters that cater to their
world -view.
While controlling the access of questionable material by children seems like a noble
endeavour, there are serious flaws in current state-of-the-art filters, some of which will not be
solved by advances in the technology. These problems are addressed below.
2.1.1 Pr ivate Blocking

In private blocking solutions, companies compete to gather lists of sites that contain
12
possibly harmful material, and these sites are blocked from being accessed. The degree of
granularity differs with different companies; some provide broad categories such as speech
that is sexually explicit, violent, etc., while others provide narrower ones. This list of sites is
seldom published, since it constitutes a trade secret. This means that one rarely knows
exactly what is being blocked; for instance, there have been cases where sites dedicated to
criticizing blocking software have themselves been blocked. [68] This is one example of
how crude the software is.
This crudeness is particularly chilling when one considers that this type of software is
increasingly being seen as a viable option for computers in public places (such as libraries
and schools). The list of offensive sites is equivalent to the banned books of the past, but the
list is unpublished! Placing blocking software in a public library is like taking books off the
shelves in order to keep offensive material from children. [68] Placing the control of what is
blocked and not blocked into the hands of companies with their own special interests is a
questionable choice.
The dynamic growth of the Internet means that these companies must keep up with
the myriad of new objectionable sites that appear. It is impossible to get them all, so this
method of blocking is not particularly effective in practice.
So although at first glance blocking software seems reasonable since we can choose
whether to use it or not, we must be careful in how it is used. Companies have their own
agendas which may or may not coincide with our own. Without full disclosure of what is
being blocked, people cannot make an informed decision about whether the software suits
their purposes.
13
2.1.2 Filtering
The most basic types of filtering regimes are based on keywords. The program
maintains a list of keywords that are not allowed to be shown to the user. Whenever the user
attempts to access a web-site containing one (or a Boolean combination of) these keywords,
they are blocked from doing so. This method of filtering is rather crude, since keywords are
poor representations of the meaning of a web-page. Much more material is blocked by this
type of filtering than desired; for instance sites dealing with sex education would be filtered
out due to the mention of the word sex. Sites concerned with teaching youth about antidrug policies would be blocked because the filter would be unable to distinguish them from
drug advocacy sites. Context can sometimes be taken into account, but only in a limited
way; the end result is still to block much more content then one might have originally
intended. [83]
In an effort to provide a method to filter content by allowing the user to fully control
what is filtered, a system of labeling called Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)
has been developed. PICS is basically a general purpose language that enables separate
labeling and filtering of content. In this way, there can be competition in the labeling as well
as the filtering market. By separating the two, you ensure that rating systems will develop
independently of filtering mechanisms. This gives neutrality in the sense that different
individuals or groups can tailor the filtering that they require. For example, an organization
which upholds Christian ideals may want to develop a rating system for people who hold
similar ideals. Similarly, an organization that values freedom of access can develop a more
14
lenient rating system. It is this competition and specificity that makes the PICS system
different from the crude blocking software that exists today. [68]
Unfortunately, PICS is also neutral in a more dangerous way. It can be used at the
level of a single user, in that he or she can use the rating system they choose on their personal
machine, but it can also be used at other levels. For example, it could be used at the ISP
level to restrict access to their clients. In the extreme case, it could be used at the national
level to restrict access in the entire country. The PICS labeling system is general enough to
be applied at any level, which means that the same feature which makes PICS desirable also
makes it dangerous. [68]
If widely adopted, this labeling system would fundamentally change the nature of the
Internet. The Internet in its present form is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to regulate.
With the addition of labeling and filtering of content, it all of a sudden becomes possible to
regulate what people see, at the level of the user, the ISP, or even the country. With many
countries not having the strong free speech protection of the U.S., the temptation for them to
exercise this control would be irresistible.
Another type of filtering which has recently gained notoriety is artificial intelligence
based filtering. These filters presume to block explicit (i.e. pornographic) graphic images by
analyzing the image and failing to display it if it is determined to be too explicit. While
details of how this decision is made is unclear, it would seem to be based on the percentage
of skin-tones in the image (with skin-tones implying nudity). Clearly this would filter an
enormous amount of non-explicit material that just happened to have a large percentage of
skin-tones. Initial tests of this technology have shown it to be horribly ineffective, with many
15
explicit photos not being blocked, and inappropriate blocking of non-explicit material. [54]
2.2 Problems with Blocking/Filtering
Blocking and filtering technology is not mature enough at the present time to be
trusted as the only method of blocking childrens access to questionable material. The
National Coalition Against Censorship offers the following descriptions of the limitations of
filters: [14]
- Oversimplification. How to distinguish "good" sex (or violence) from "bad"? Filters and
labels assume that television programs and Internet sites can be reduced to a single letter or
symbol, or a combination.
- Overbreadth. Ratings and filters often ignore context and, thus, inevitably exclude
material that users might want to have, along with material they may not want.
- Feasibility. What about better descriptions of television programming and Internet sites? It
sounds like a good idea, but it isn't currently feasible. There are thousands of television
programs, content changes daily, and each new program would require a new description.
The Internet is many times vaster, and the task of describing its contents is virtually
unimaginable.
- Subjectivity. Any rating system that classifies or describes content is dependent on the
subjective judgment of the rater. Even if all participants voluntarily agreed to self-rate,
which is highly unlikely, different raters would describe or rate the same content differently.
16
- Full disclosure. Few Internet filters disclose what you lose by using them. The makers of
these products claim that information is proprietary and its disclosure would provide a
roadmap to objectionable material.
- Security. Filters and ratings give a false sense of security, by suggesting that all parents
need to do to protect children is to block disturbing ideas and images. But this material, and
the threats parents fear, exist in and out of cyberspace, and children need help learning to
deal with them.
2.2.1 COPA Commission

The Commission on Online Child Protection (the COPA Commission) was formed in
the U.S. to evaluate the different solutions for protecting children from objectionable
material on the Internet. The Commission was a result of the passage of the Child Online
Protection Act (COPA), legislation which will be discussed in the next chapter. After
evaluating a large variety of protection solutions, including blocking and filtering technology,
the Commission concluded that:
no single technology or method will effectively protect children from
harmful material online.
Rather, the Commission determined that a
combination of public education, consumer empowerment technologies and

methods, increased enforcement of existing laws, and industry action are
needed to address this concern. [82]
Furthermore:
Witness after witness testified that protection of children online requires
17
more education, more technologies, heightened public awareness of existing

technologies and better enforcement of existing laws. [82]
The COPA Commission was composed of a wide variety of people especially

interested in the protection of children online. Their conclusion, that filtering alone will not
solve the problem of preventing access to harmful material, deserves strong consideration.
As we start advocating the use of blocking and filtering technology in public places such as
libraries and schools, we must be acutely aware of the limitations of the technology, and
avoid the feeling of security that the filter company will try to sell us. Use of filters in the
home by parents should also be done with care; understand that the filter is a blunt
instrument and cannot take the place of parental supervision and education of our children on
what is appropriate online. Free speech is threatened whenever blocking or filtering is
enabled, and we must be sure that preventing children from accessing objectionable material
does not also impede on the rights of adults to access said material. If free and open dialogue
is important in our society then we must be sure to implement solutions that are narrowly
tailored to the protection of children, and do not unnecessarily hinder free speech.
2.3 Filtering Legislation
2.3.1 Legal Positions on Filtering in the U.S.

The United States is the birthplace of the Internet, and this combined with the strong
free speech protection that the U.S. Constitution provides means that Americans are usually
18
the first to test the legal boundaries of new technology. In recent years libraries have started
providing Internet access to their patrons, and there has been a call for filters to be installed
on these very public computers to ensure that objectionable material is not accessed by
children, or displayed without consent to other library patrons. Two notable cases will
illustrate how filters have faired under constitutional tests.
The first occurred in Loudoun County, Virginia, in late 1997. The Board of Trustees
of the Loudoun County Library adopted a Policy on Internet Sexual Harassment which
required that blocking software be installed on all library computers. [71] The blocking was
required to ensure that child pornography and obscene material, as well as material deemed
harmful to minors could not be accessed by library patrons. The blocking software was
overbroad and blocked access to many non-obscene sites such as Yale Universitys biology
deparment, the Zero Population Growth website, and many others. [55] Citizens of Loudoun
County sued the Library Board with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
shortly after the Policy was enacted. District Judge Leone M. Brinkema ruled that the
Library Board could not use the Policy any more and had to remove all blocking software
from their servers. In her ruling she stated:
Adult library patrons are presumed to have acquired already the
fundamental value needed to act as citizens, and have come to the library to
pursue their personal intellectual interests rather than the curriculum of a
high school classroom. As such, no curricular motive justifies a public
librarys decision to restrict access to Internet materials on the basis of their
content. We are therefore left with the First Amendments central tenet that
19
content-based restrictions on speech must be justified by a compelling

governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that end.
Accordingly, we hold that the Library Board may not adopt and enforce
content-based restrictions on access to protected Internet speech absent a
compelling state interest and means narrowly drawn to achieve that end.
[71]
The second case is in many ways the opposite of the Loudoun County case. In May
1998 a resident of Livermore, California identified simply as Kathleen R. sued the City of
Livermore because her son was able to access sexually explicit material from library
computers connected to the Internet. [61] There was no blocking or filtering technology used
on the library computers, and Kathleen R. claimed that the library should have had a means
to stop her sons access to the obscene material. The City of Livermore describes the
complaint as follows:
The Complaint filed by Kathleen R. (Plaintiff) requests injunctive relief
against the City of Livermore (City) preventing it or its agents, servants,
and employees from spending any public funds on the acquisition, use,
and/or maintenance of any computer system connected to the Internet or
World Wide Web for which it allows any person to access, display, and/or
print obscene material or for which it allows minors to access, display,
and/or print sexual material harmful to minors. [61]
In other words the suit wanted the library to stop receiving funding until it could stop the
access of obscene and harmful material. Her lawyer, Michael D. Millen, suggested that the
20
use of filters would be a good remedy. In January 1999, Judge George Hernandez dismissed
the suit without issuing an opinion. [74]
So filtering at public government institutions was rejected in both cases because (as
stated in the Loudoun decision) there was no compelling governmental interest to justify
content-based restrictions. In an effort to appease the popular misconception that the Internet
is at the heart of many problems facing youth today, the federal government is attempting to
provide the compelling governmental interest that will lead to filters being used in most
schools and libraries.
In December 2000, Congress passed the Childrens Internet Protection Act (CIPA),
which requires all schools and libraries that want federal financial support to use filters to
block obscene material and material deemed harmful to minors.
The bill relies on established legal definitions for obscenity and child
pornography, but offers its own definition of what sort of content is harmful
to minors. The bill defines this category as any picture or image that,
appeals to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion depicts,
describes, or represents an actual or simulated sexual act [or] lacks
serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors. [90]
The constitutionality of the CIPA will be tested in the courts, as a group consisting of the
ACLU, the American Library Association, and others have filed lawsuits challenging the
Act. [8] Governments at the local and state level have not been able to pass the legal test in
their filtering policies; it will be interesting to see if the federal government is able to
overcome this constitutional hurdle.
21
2.3.2 Filtering Ar ound the World

Many countries have requirements for ISPs to use filters, or central government
blocking/filtering. For instance, Singapore funnels all Internet content through central
government portals and uses blocking software to block about 100 sites (mostly pornographic
sites). [70] The blocking is done based on web-site addresses, and the list is fixed. Vietnam
has a similar system of relatively mild filtering. [59]
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both do central filtering as well.
They filter for
pornography, political content, anti-Islamic material, and other controversial content. [86, 40]
The method of filtering seems to be a combination of keyword-based filtering and
blacklisting of specific sites.
In Australia, ISPs are required to provide filters to their users from a list of
government-approved filters. These filters were chosen not based on their effectiveness, but
instead based on the fact that they included URLs provided by the government in their
blacklists. [5]
South Korea has recently passed legislation forcing filters to be used on all computers
in public places, i.e. cyber-cafes, schools, and libraries. They seem to be using PICS or a
PICS-like system to label content and then filter based on a government rating system.
Furthermore, web-sites in South Korea are now required to label their content so that the
filters will be effective. Interestingly since the legislation passed, sites protesting this new
turn of events have been filtered out so that they cannot be accessed in public places. [64]
22
2.4 Summary
Blocking and filtering technology is increasingly being seen as a solution to the

problem of controversial material on the Internet. Governments around the world are either
using filters or considering legislation requiring filters for their citizens, many times without
full knowledge of what filters can and cannot do. Using filters as a quick-fix will drastically
affect free speech, and this must be well understood and very carefully thought out before
implementation. The next chapter looks at a wide variety of countries in detail and outlines
their Internet free speech policies as well as their e-commerce landscape.
23
Chapter 3
Survey of Countries
3.1
Intr oduction
The first step in determining what, if any, relationships exist between e-commerce
and free speech is to survey a wide variety of countries from all parts of the world. The
survey consists of discovering the current free speech policy of each country, as well as the
evolution of said policy. Lastly, the current and projected e-commerce landscape for the
country is examined.
Gathering e-commerce data and information on free speech policies is a difficult task
due to the scarcity of reliable sources. As stated before there has been little scholarly work in
the area that this thesis is concerned with, so one must turn to alternative sources to gather
information. The first inclination would be to go to official government web-pages for each
country, but this method rarely shows results. Most countries do not clearly state their free
speech policies in an accessible place. Trying to contact someone within the government
from their official web-pages through electronic mail is similarly futile. A lack of response is
the most common result, but even when a reply is given it is not a clear statement of policy.
The main sources of the following summaries of free speech policies were reports from
agencies such as the Human Rights Watch, Digital Freedom Network, and others, as well as
24
news reports gleaned from various sources. E-commerce data was also found in news reports
and web-sites that cater to international business concerns.
Countries were chosen so that there would be representation from every major region
of the world. Within regions where information gathering was more difficult (such as Africa
and South America), countries were chosen mainly because information on both their free
speech policies and e-commerce climate was attainable. In other regions where there was an
abundance of information on many countries, they were chosen so that countries at different
stages of Internet maturity were represented, i.e. ones that had embraced the Internet at
different times and/or had a range of e-commerce revenue. Countries are grouped according
to the continent they belong to, with the exception of countries in the Middle East which are
grouped as a separate region.
3.2 Asia
3.2.1 China
The Internet was slow to catch on in China due to the government's resistance to
outside influences. Having originated in western democratic countries, the Internet was seen
by the Communist government of China to be yet another vehicle for the encroachment of
western ideals into Chinese culture. With the commercialization of the Internet and the
ensuing economic gain experienced by other countries, China proceeded to embrace it. A
cautious Chinese government made sure that all Internet service was funneled through
government servers which blocked Western news sites, Chinese dissident sites, and other
25
material deemed objectionable. Despite these limits there were 100,000 Chinese citizens
online in 1997, a number which has grown to 17 million at the end of 2000. If this rate of
growth continues, China could have the largest online population within three years. [76]
Initially there were no laws in China that specifically governed the Internet, however
there were high-profile arrests for incidents involving the Internet. For instance, in 1999
computer engineer Lin Hai was sentenced to two years in prison for inciting the overthrow
of state power after he provided 30,000 e-mail addresses to V.I.P. Reference, a Chinese prodemocracy e-mail publication produced in the United States. V.I.P. Reference sends its
publication to hundreds of thousands of Chinese e-mail addresses in order to protect the
identity of the true subscribers; anyone caught receiving it can claim they never requested it.
[92] More recently in June of 2000, Huang Qi, the founder of Chinas first human-rights
web site (www.6-4tianwang.com) was arrested for subverting state power after he posted
articles criticizing the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. [76]
The Communist Chinese government has a history of sacrificing human rights for
political stability, and the Internet would not be allowed to escape its control. In January of
2000, the State Secrecy Bureau released its Provisions on Secrecy Management of
Computer Information Systems on the Internet. These regulations concern the transmission
of state secrets, which, while not fully defined in the legislation, seem to refer to any piece
of information that the State Secrecy Bureau deems to be a state secret. Special permission
must be given before any state secret may be transmitted or made available on the Internet.
[78]
26
On October 1, 2000, the government released the Measures for Managing Internet
Information Services. This legislation requires that all commercial Internet Information
Services (IIS) obtain a license from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in order to
operate. Non-commercial IIS do not need official licenses, but must report their services to
the MII for the official record. The measures also limit the amount of foreign investment
allowed in an IIS. At present foreign investors are restricted to owning 49% of an IIS, but
this number will rise to 50% in two years time. These limits are routinely bypassed by
pouring capital into offshore subsidiaries that the Chinese companies have set up in the
Cayman Islands and elsewhere. [76]
Article 14 of the Measures restrict an IIS from publishing news unless the news is
from a state-run news site. This is an extension of existing rules on traditional print and
television media that only allow state produced and sanctioned news items. Before these
Measures, many web sites had an informal network of reporters that produced content; this is
no longer allowed. [76] The Article requires an IIS to keep records of all content posted for
60 days. It also requires an ISP to record the time that its subscribers accessed the Internet,
the subscribers account numbers, the addresses of web sites visited, and the telephone
numbers they use. These records are also required to be kept for 60 days. [76] These last
requirements bring up many privacy issues, but are not surprising given Chinas policies in
the offline world.
From a free speech perspective, the most important part of the Measures are
contained in Article 15:
27
IIS providers shall not produce, reproduce, release, or disseminate information

that contains any of the following:
1. Information that goes against the basic principles set in the constitution;
2. Information that endangers national security, divulges state secrets, subverts
the government, or undermines national unity;
3. Information that is detrimental to the honour and interests of the state;
4. Information that instigates ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, or that
undermines national unity;
5. Information that undermines the states policy towards religions, or that
preaches the teachings of evil cults or that promotes feudalistic and
superstitious beliefs;
6. Information that disseminates rumours, disturbs social order, or undermines
social stability;
7. Information that spreads pornography or other salacious materials; promotes
gambling, violence, homicide, or terrorism; or instigates crimes;
8. Information that insults or slanders other people, or infringes upon other
peoples legitimate rights and interests; or
9. Other information prohibited by the law or administrative regulations. [76]
These requirements are extremely broad and place great power in the hands of regulators. It
is not clear if a search engine site would be liable for disseminating pornography or other
salacious materials for simply returning the results to a user-entered search. This is an
extremely restrictive policy towards free speech with regards to an IIS. Coupling these
28
restrictions with the fact that ISPs are required to keep records of user activity provides a
means for the Chinese government to fully stifle any speech deemed objectionable.
Before these Measures chat rooms were places of lively discussions, where the
relative anonymity of cyberspace encouraged people to participate in political debate that they
would not be privy to in the offline world. These new regulations apply equally to chat
rooms, so this type of discussion is now outlawed. [76]
The practical effect of the Measures will probably not be as drastic as one would
initially assume. The Internet Information Services are well aware of the prevailing political
climate that they operate in, and have practiced self-censorship even before these Measures
were passed. Many web sites would shut down their chat rooms in advance of sensitive dates
like the Tiananmen anniversary in order to avoid controversy. Even before the Measures,
editors known as Big Mamas in Chinese removed posts that criticized the government from
public bulletin boards. [76]
In the end, the Measures are a means for the government to instill fear into citizens.
The main objective is to deter people who would speak out against the government from
doing so on the Internet. Past history suggests that these regulations will gradually stop being
enforced as strictly once the government is satisfied that it has grabbed the attention of the
citizenry. When fax machines and modems were first introduced, people required a license to
own one; that law is ignored today. [76]
Since the Measures were released, China has also released filtering software called
Internet Police 110 that will help network administrators block objectionable material on the
Internet. Officials have not as yet said whether the software would be mandatory or not. [79]
29
Also, recently a ban was placed on opening up new cyber-cafes, and as many as 6000
existing cyber-cafes were closed down for not having proper licenses. [16]
E-Commerce Considerations
The government agency in charge of the Internet, the Ministry of Information
Industry, expected a volume of $42 million (U.S. dollars) in online shopping by the end of
2000. [24] This is a huge increase over the year before, and especially significant considering
the slow access times that most online consumers face. As of mid-2000, the Chinese
governments ambivalent attitude towards the Internet fearing the possibility of loss of
control, but realizing the potential economic gain has so far given precedence to the latter
consideration. [24]
With the release of the new Measures for Managing Internet
Information Services, it seems as though the focus has shifted towards regaining control of
the Internet.
3.2.2 Hong Kong

When China regained control of Hong Kong it committed to allowing Hong Kong to
keep its capitalist system intact. As China has started clamping down on Internet freedoms, it
is interesting to note that the Internet in Hong Kong has remained free. There is not any
blockage of Internet sites at the government level, and there are no restrictions on ISPs to
censor content. There is an existing law called the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles
Ordinance that, while not explicitly having the Internet mentioned as part of its jurisdiction,
has been used to charge web-site creators with posting obscene content. [59] As a result,
many of the major ISPs have started blocking newsgroups that contain obscene material. [86]
30
The government has begun a review of the Ordinance in April 2000, with the main focus to
make the law explicitly applicable to the Internet. [28]
The focus of the changes to the Ordinance may change, however, as the Internet
grows in popularity. As recently as December 2000, lawmakers in Hong Kong were
demanding more control over Internet content after an online publication showed a video clip
of a journalist picking up a prostitute. [19]
As it stands now, China has stood behind its promise to not impose restrictive laws on
the people of Hong Kong. In terms of the Internet, China may be using Hong Kong as a testbed for what can happen when Internet access is left unfiltered and for the most part
unregulated. The Internet experiment in Hong Kong may influence how China treats the
Internet in the future.
The number of Internet users in Hong Kong has grown dramatically in recent years.
There were 1.9 million people online at the end of 2000 (out of a population of 6.8 million), a
number expected to grow to 4.0 million by 2004. Furthermore, according to the Information
and Technology Broadcasting Bureau, the number of local Internet users making purchases
online rose by 50% between October 1998 and October 1999. The e-business sector is
extremely strong in Hong Kong, with the total value of products and services transacted over
the Internet expected to grow from $60 million (USD) in 1998 to $1.3 billion in 2002, and
$2.4 billion in 2003. To help this growth, the Electronic Transactions Ordinance was enacted
in January 2000, which gives e-commerce and digital signatures the same legal status as their
paper-based counterparts. [28]
31
3.2.3 India
India has started embracing the Internet in the past few years. The number of online
users in March of 2000 was 770,000 [29]; however, getting accurate numbers on how many
people regularly access the Internet is difficult since many accounts are shared, and cyber
cafes are extremely popular. [29] The figure 3.2 million is the more likely estimate of
Internet penetration, but this only represents 0.2 percent of the adult population of India.
This is not surprising considering that a significant portion of the adult population lives under
the poverty line. [29]
There were no laws related to the Internet in India until June of 2000 when the
Information Technology Act 2000 was signed into law. The Act was a major step forward
towards recognizing information technology as a valid form of communication. Before the
Act, government agencies were prohibited from keeping electronic records; everything had to
be kept on paper in order to be valid. The Act officially recognizes e-mail as a valid form of
communication, and electronic contracts and digital signatures are also recognized. [50]
The IT Act does have flaws, however. In an attempt to deal with cyber-crime, the
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) is given broad powers to pursue cyber-criminals.
The DSP is allowed to enter and search any public place and arrest any person without
warrant who is reasonably suspected of committing a cyber-crime. Furthermore, the DSP
may also arrest someone if there is reason to believe the person is about to commit a cybercrime. [50] How a police officer is supposed to know when someone is about to commit a
crime is not defined. The IT Act also gives immunity to the Central Government and the
32
police by not allowing any lawsuit or other legal proceedings for any act done in good faith
in pursuance of the provisions of the Act. [50] This effectively rules out any remedy for
people who are wrongfully accused under the Act.
Internet Service Providers are held liable for any information deemed harmful (a term
not clearly defined in the Act) that the ISP hosts or provides to users. [50] This includes
third party data provided to a user as a result of a user query (for example, a search engine
providing search results). ISPs are not liable if they can prove that they had no knowledge of
any offence, or if they acted with due diligence to prevent the commission of any offence.
[50] There has already been a high profile arrest of the proprietors of an Indian search engine
(Rediff.com) for providing pornography to users. [60] Rediff contends that they are a mere
search engine and do not host the content that is deemed harmful, in that they are only
providing the results to a user query; however, the Act still holds them liable. The judge has
initially ruled against Rediff, stating that other Indian search engines do not provide access to
pornography. This is a misleading statement, since the search engines cited are not
technically search engines. They are basically a listing of Indian sites that users can go to;
they do not provide general search capability for the broader Internet. [60]
It is important to note that the Internet is a relatively new technology in India, and
most government officials are not well-versed in the intricacies of the technology. As time
passes and knowledge increases, a more reasonable approach to the technology will most
likely be adopted.
According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies, India, the
33
e-commerce volume was $3.5 million at the end of 1999, $9.1 million at the end of 2000, and
is expected to grow to $23.6 million by the end of 2001. [29] The Indian government is
anxious to continue this growth, and the Information Technology Act 2000 is a positive step.
The IT Act is mainly concerned with providing laws enabling e-business, such as the
recognition of electronic contracts and digital signatures. While procedures for fighting
cyber-crime is also dealt with in the IT Act, there is surprisingly very little mention about
harmful content; the major form of cyber-crime mentioned in the act is hacking.
3.2.4 Malaysia
Malaysia has not as of yet enacted any formal regulations restricting ISPs or Internet
users. However, there have been notable cases where the Internet has been censored by
government agencies. In August of 1999 when deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was
ousted out of power, as many as 48 web-sites criticizing the governments decision had
lawsuits opened against them for making defamatory accusations. [66]
In October of 2000, the Malaysian government threatened to shut down cybercafes in
the fear that they were becoming places where undesirable elements would gather. This
threat followed regulations passed by the government that closed down all video game
arcades in the country for the same reason. [73] More recently in February of 2001, the
government banned reporters from the Internet news agency Malaysiakini.com from press
conferences and other government functions. The ban is not surprising considering that
Malaysiakini.com has published many articles criticizing the government; the government
had, however, promised not to censor Internet news agencies or their activities. [72]
34
In 1999 Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad created the Multimedia Super Corridor
(MSC), a technology park located near Kuala Lumpur. The goal was to bring the research
and development efforts of multinational technology companies to Malaysia. [88] Along
with various financial incentives, the government has also pledged to not censor content on
the Internet. While there has been rising concern about indecent or unhealthy content
available on the Internet, the government has so far steered clear from intervention. [34]
The MSC is seen by the Malaysian government as being extremely important to the future of
their economy. If the MSC project is successful, Malaysia will most likely adhere to the
defense of free speech on the Internet; however, if it is not then community concerns may
lead to attempts to curb free speech. The incidents outlined above where the Internet was
censored show that the government is willing and able to ban controversial speech; the
economic concerns are all that stop them from doing so.
3.2.5 Pakistan
The Internet has not caught on in Pakistan as much as it has in neighbouring countries
such as India. The main reason for this is the low penetration of PCs and in particular PCs
connected to the Internet. According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, by mid2000 the population of 130 million had bought only 3 million PCs in total. [37] All Internet
access is channeled through the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation
Limited (PTCL). [3] The government is keen on maintaining Islamic morals and as such
filters all Internet content for pornography, anti-Islam material, anti-government material, etc.
35
[37] In the charter for the Ministry of Science and Technology, we find the following: To
enable a free society to function, minimum amount of intrusion will be permitted in terms of
monitoring and filtering on all kinds of communication. [58]
Pakistan has been politically unstable with the recent military coup, and as such has
not been active on the e-commerce front. Only a small proportion of the population (1
million out of 130 million) have Internet access, so the value of e-commerce is low. There
are no accurate figures available on the level of trade conducted over the Internet, but it is
not very significant. [37]
3.2.6 Indonesia
The traditional print media in Indonesia were heavily censored by the previous
dictatorship of President Suharto, using the Ministry of Information to control and censor
print media and to spread propaganda. When Suharto resigned in 1998, the Ministry of
Information was eliminated, and new press laws were drafted that guaranteed freedom of the
press and penalties for impeding this freedom. [57] The legislation applies to Internet
publishers as well as print media. However, press freedoms are routinely curbed with
regards to sensitive issues such as ethnicity, race, religion, and radical politics. As of yet the
Internet has not been censored to any significant extent, with the government more concerned
with bringing stability to the country after the turmoil in East Timor.
Indonesian retailers have been quick to offer services on the Internet, with nearly
36
every on-line activity found in developed countries having a parallel in Indonesia. The main
problem faced by retailers is the poor Internet penetration rate for Indonesian citizens.
According to Pyramid Research, only 435,000 Indonesians have access to the Internet in
2001, a number which will grow to 1.3 million by 2004. In a country of over 200 million
people, that is an extremely small number. [30]
3.2.7 Singapore
The government of Singapore initially routed all Internet access through a
government portal. Filters were used to weed out offensive material; with an emphasis on
filtering pornographic material rather than other potentially harmful material (e.g. articles
critical of the government). [86] Making the Internet safe for families was, and continues to
be, a major focus for the government. This extreme form of censorship has since been toned
down and only about 100 pornographic sites are banned by the government, all other sites are
accessible. [70] One might ask why these 100 are banned while thousands of others are
allowed in, the answer is that the government does not want to appear to be lenient towards
pornography while at the same time not seeming draconian in its free speech policies.
Singapore does require all ISPs to provide a family-safe access package if the customers so
desires in the form of filtering at the ISP level or white-lists of sites the user can access. The
Singapore Broadcasting Authority has also set up an online safety fund aimed at promoting
development of web-safety resources such as access management tools, appealing and
safe content for children, and more public education initiatives. [17]
Although the outright censorship has been toned down, the government still uses fear
37
to keep the citizenry in line. Singapore does not have the explicit right to privacy laws that
many countries do, so officials routinely search accounts for objectionable material (again,
for the most part pornography). [70] People can be charged as a result of these scans, and the
people of Singapore have learned to respect the power that the government wields.
Singapore is considered to be one of the most advanced Internet economies in the
world. [41] The regulatory environment is highly developed for e-commerce, and 920,000
people are on-line as of the end of 2000. By 2004, all 3.2 million citizens are expected to
have access to the Internet. This high penetration has helped Singapore become a world
leader in e-commerce.
It is interesting to note that Singapore initially censored all content, but in order to
attract investment have backed down on this stance. Also, under pressure from foreign
investors, ISPs are no longer held liable if users access forbidden sites. [70]
3.2.8 Philippines
In 1996 the Philippines signed an agreement with the ASEAN countries (a group of
east Asian countries led by Singapore) to collectively regulate the Internet; however, even
Singapore has since effectively abandoned that agreement, and the Philippines has not
enacted any laws pertaining to it. The Philippines have opted to not censor the Internet as of
yet, but they do have existing laws against child pornography which also apply to the
Internet. [38] The Internet penetration is still quite low, with 495,000 people online at the
end of 2000, out of a population of 77 million. These numbers may not be accurate,
38
however, since up to four people can share a single account. [38]

Only about 1% of Philippine businesses are online, as they have been slow to
embrace the Internet. Still, the volume of e-commerce transactions in 1999 was $2-3 million
(USD), a number that is expected to grow as more businesses come online. The Philippine
government has also passed the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 in order to provide the
legal framework for e-commerce. Among other things, it recognizes digital signatures as
legally binding and prescribes penalties for computer hacking. [38]
3.2.9 South Kor ea

In the off-line world, the South Korean government has been known to censor
information relating to public morals and national security. When the Internet first came to
South Korea in 1994, the government was eager to enact legislation curbing access to
pornography and other subversive material. [86] Any attempts to do this, however, were
initially abandoned as the potential economic gain of the Internet was realized.
Recently, the South Korean Information and Communications Ministry has passed a
bill which forces web-site creators to label their site if it could be considered harmful to
children. Furthermore, any computers in public places such as schools and libraries are
required to use government-approved filters to ensure that children cannot access harmful
material. The filtering seems to be based on PICS or a PICS-like system and computers
would use the government-approved rating system. [64] It is unclear how or if the bill would
apply to material not originating in South Korea. The South Korean government cannot
39
force web-sites in other countries to label their material, so the legislation seems pointless.
South Korea has a very strong Internet economy, and it has a solid regulatory
framework in place. The e-commerce sector of the economy was a $2.2 billion (USD)
market in 1999, and is expected to reach $9.6 billion by 2003. The Internet penetration was
5.5 million people online (out of 46.9 million) at the end of 2000, and will grow to 9.6
million by 2004. [43]
3.2.10 Sr i Lanka
Sri Lanka has been embroiled in a civil war for many years, and all levels of the
economy have suffered as a result. Most Sri Lankans are not online, with only 22,000 out of
18.8 million people online at the end of 1999. As of yet the government has not imposed any
specific censorship legislation for the Internet. The press (including the Internet press) are
regularly restricted from posting material of political/strategic importance during a state of
emergency (a common state during the civil conflict). [45]
There is not much opportunity for e-commerce in Sri Lanka during these turbulent
times. The most pressing concern for the government is enhancing the communications
infrastructure so that more people can get online. This is gradually occurring as the
government technologies ministries have joined with telecommunication firms to improve
access. The future potential in Sri Lanka is definitely there, as Sri Lanka enjoys an unusually
high level of literacy (92%). [45]
40
3.2.11 Vietnam
The Vietnamese government admits to censoring sites dealing with controversial
political views by routing all Internet connections through a government-controlled gateway.
The censorship is not very thorough, however, as many sites containing radical views are
accessible from within Vietnam. [59] Vietnam has historically been quick to adopt new
technologies once introduced to them, a fact that allowed its small army to hold off a much
larger Chinese force when the two countries were at war in 1979. The Vietnamese
government may allow basically unfiltered Internet access in order to encourage the adoption
of this new technology by the population, while at the same time not officially endorsing
controversial views. [59] As of yet the Internet penetration is quite low [49], but the
governments gamble may lead to citizens coming online in increasing numbers.
The Internet penetration in Vietnam is still very small, with 74,600 people online at
the end of 2000 (out of 79.5 million), a number that is expected to grow to 210,100 by 2003.
The Vietnamese government is focused on increasing the number of people with Internet
access by improving the telecommunications infrastructure. There is very little legislative
framework for e-commerce, and most firms use the Internet merely for e-mail. [49]
3.2.12 Russia
The Internet in Russia is considerably freer than print and television media. It is not
seen as a mass media, a classification that would bring with it much more government
41
regulation. This non-classification is not just an oversight, as new media laws in parliament
specifically exclude the Internet from its jurisdiction. [39] This bodes well for the
encouragement of free speech; however, there is also a downside.
The 1995 Law on
Operational Investigations, a law which allows security services to monitor communications

such as postal deliveries and cell-phone conversations, has recently been amended to include
electronic communications in its jurisdiction. [39] This means that any government security
service can monitor Internet e-mail or chat rooms by obtaining a warrant. In fact, a warrant
may not be necessary since it is easy enough to monitor electronic communication without
anyone ever knowing.
Russian Internet penetration was 574,600 people online at the end of 2000, and will
grow to 1.6 million by 2004 (out of 146 million). [39] Free Internet access has recently
become available in Russia, and if it proves to be a viable business model then Internet
access will flourish. [84] The total amount of e-commerce at the end of 1999 was estimated
at $46 million (USD), and the Boston Consulting Group estimates this could reach $400-600
million by 2003. [39]
3.3 South America
3.3.1 Ar gentina
The Argentinian government has given serious consideration to the topic of
censorship on the Internet. In Presidential Decree 1279/97, enacted on November 25, 1997,
42
it explicitly stated the government's support for Internet development and its refusal to
interfere with production, creation and diffusion of information that is distributed on the
Internet. [59] This is the same freedom given to the press, radio and television in the
country. To make this policy clear to citizens, the government requires ISPs to make the
following statement in every user invoice: The National State does not control or regulate
information available on the Internet. Parents are recommended to exercise reasonable
control over the content accessed by their children. It is advisable to consult your ISP to
obtain suitable advice on programs designed to prohibit access to undesirable sites. [59]
This is a very strong defense of free speech made by the Argentinian government. There is
some controversy over this decree, however, as some prominent politicians have attempted to
enact a bill that would crack-down on hate speech and/or racist web-sites. [59]
Although there has been much growth in Internet usage in recent years, Argentina still
suffers from a poor penetration rate. There were 905,500 people online at the end of 2000,
and there will be 2.4 million by 2004. These are small numbers considering the population
of Argentina is 36.6 million. E-commerce revenues at the end of 1998 were $1.7 million
(USD) (the latest figures available). This number is expected to have grown significantly
since then due to the large number of e-commerce sites that have been opened up in recent
years. [20]
3.3.2 Br azil
The issue of censorship of the Internet by the government has not come up yet in
43
Brazil. Currently speech is free on the Internet in Brazil; however, as the government rushes
to enact legislation to help e-commerce, censorship laws could be passed as well. Although
Brazil has freedom of the press laws, the traditional press is censored in some ways. It is not
uncommon for journalists to be threatened if they decide to expose government corruption.
[12] Also, journalists and newspapers are regularly fined for defamation when they publish
articles critical of the government. [85] These attitudes do not bode well for the future of
free speech on the Internet in Brazil.
Brazil had 4.3 million users online at the end of 2000, and will have 12.7 million by
2004. Considering the population is 163.7 million, this is a small number indeed. [22] Free
of charge Internet service and the development of cheap PCs by researchers should help to
spark Internet usage by the general population. [7] Total e-commerce transactions at the end
of 2000 were $449 million (USD), and will grow to $3.2 billion by 2003. E-commerce has
so far grown without much of a regulatory framework; a situation which is changing as the
government passes new legislation. [22]
3.4 Middle East
3.4.1 Saudi Ar abia

Up until February 1999, the Internet was not available to the general population of
Saudi Arabia; it was confined to universities and hospitals only. The reason for this was that
the government was fearful of the harmful material such as pornography that was widely
44
available on the Internet. [86] Now it is relatively easy to get Internet access; however, all
traffic is funneled through the Internet Unit at the King Abdulaziz City for Science and
Technology (KACST). The Internet Unit filters out pornographic, political, anti-Islamic, and
other controversial material before it reaches the user. [40] This is a harsh form of
censorship, and many users access the Internet illegally through overseas ISPs in
neighbouring countries to avoid it. [86]
There were 131,100 people online at the end of 2000 (out of 20.8 million), and this is
forecast to grow to 291,500 by 2004. This number is probably too low, since many users
access the Internet illegally to avoid censorship. Regardless, a significant proportion of the
population is online. Accurate numbers for e-commerce are difficult to find, but officials
cited $10 million (USD) after one year of legalized Internet access in February 2000.
Businesses have been slow to catch on to the Internet yet, as 67% of firms did not have
access to the Internet at the end of 1999, according to a KACST survey. [40]
3.4.2 Israel
The official government stance on the Internet is that it is committed to keeping it
free of censorship. The traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television are
subject to state censorship, but the Internet has so far been excluded. [59] There has been
one case where the author of an Internet site was asked to close down his web-site by the
government. Michael Eldar, a former army officer, wrote a book about the loss of an Israeli
submarine in 1968. The book was pulled out of bookstores by the government because it
45
contained sensitive material. Portions of the book that were placed online in a non-Israeli
Internet account by Eldar were removed after he was asked to do so by the government.
Whether he was forced to do so under duress or simply politely asked is not known. [59]
This has so far been the only high-profile case of pseudo-censorship that Israel has imposed
on the Internet.
Israel had 893,400 users online at the end of 2000 (out of 6.1 million), and will have
2.0 million online by 2004. This is an extremely high level of penetration. E-commerce
transactions totaled $17 million (USD) at the end of 1999. The only thing holding back ecommerce is the scarcity of Hebrew and Arabic content available. [33]
Once this
shortcoming is addressed e-commerce should grow by leaps and bounds.
3.4.3 Iran and Iraq

Both Iran and Iraq have an extremely low PC penetration, and Internet access is a
luxury afforded to a very small segment of the population. In Iran, there are four ISPs that
provide slow access to the Internet (approximately 9600 baud). The press in Iran is heavily
monitored and routinely censored, and local Internet sites are monitored for material that
promotes dissent. [31] The slow access rates and poor PC penetration probably explain why
more censorship of the Internet has not been enforced; as long as people cannot get to
objectionable material then there is no need to censor it. This may be changing, as recently
the government closed down more than 400 cyber-cafes for the official reason that they did
not have licenses, despite the fact that there is no procedure to obtain licenses. [65]
46
Iraq has bigger problems than Internet access, with the U.N. sanctions still in effect.
The Internet at present is basically only available to government officials. The press in Iraq
is run by the government and no opposition newspapers are allowed. In late 1998, the
Ministry of Justice and the Interior said it would be passing legislation for the Internet that
would deal with security issues as well as the distribution of obscene or immoral material,
however this has not happened as of yet. [32]
There is basically no e-commerce in either Iran or Iraq, as poor PC and Internet
penetration have held them back. There will be no e-commerce in Iraq without an estimated
$1 billion in network modernization. [32] Similar infrastructure enhancements are needed
in Iran.
3.4.4 Jor dan

When Internet use was provided to the general population in 1995, the government
required ISPs to block all sexually explicit material. [86] As more ISPs arrived these
restrictions were relaxed, and as of 1999 there were no restrictions imposed on web-content
providers, users, or ISPs. In fact, users in neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia start up
accounts in Jordan and pay the long distance rates in order to have access to an uncensored
Internet. [59]
The only form of mild censorship is found in the cyber-cafes. If users are found to be
accessing pornographic material, they are asked to stop because the cyber-cafes are public
places where children are regularly present. No account blocking or other restrictions are
47
imposed on the user. [59]

Jordan has a relatively high level of PC penetration and Internet access is enjoyed by
a significant portion of the 5 million people of Jordan. E-commerce numbers are difficult to
find, but there are a large number of businesses online in Jordan. [59]
3.5 Africa
3.5.1 Nigeria
Censorship of the Internet has not been an issue in Nigeria as a vast majority of the
population has neither the telecommunications infrastructure nor the economic advantage to
afford Internet access. In the past the traditional print media have been censored heavily, but
after the fall of the Abacha regime, Nigeria once again has a free press. The government is
unlikely to impose censorship of the Internet as it is more likely to monitor the traditional
press, which is much more accessible to Nigerians. [36]
There is no significant e-commerce transacted over the Internet in Nigeria. As of
1999, there were only 50,000 people online in a country of 125.2 million. Nigeria is the most
populous country in Africa, and approximately 10 million Nigerians are recognized as
potential Internet users. The major obstacle to Internet penetration is the favouritism the
Nigerian Communications Commission shows to the state-owned telecom operator Nitel.
Nitel is due to be privatized in 2001 or 2002, at which point competition might open up and
48
the Internet may start to flourish in Nigeria. [36]
3.5.2 South Afr ica

South Africa has embraced the Internet more than any other African nation, and does
not implement any blocking at the government level. One major threat to free speech is new
legislation that makes ISPs liable if child pornography passes through their network. This
means that if a user accesses child pornography, the ISP must immediately inform police of
the offense; if it does not and the police find out through other means then the ISP is liable.
How ISPs are expected to monitor all traffic that passes through their network is not outlined.
Clearly such monitoring is impossible. To date there have not been any ISPs convicted
under this legislation. [42]
The South African Human Rights Commission has severely criticized the traditional
press in South Africa for partiality and racism in a report published in November 1999. This
partiality and racism will most likely also occur in online publications, seeing as how the
average Internet user in South Africa is a relatively wealthy white person; there were at most
200,000 black Internet users at the end of 1999. [42] This form of censorship and bias will
affect Internet content in South Africa.
There were 729,000 people with Internet access in South Africa at the end of 2000
(out of a population of 43 million), a number expected to grow to 1.6 million by 2004. This
is a small percentage, and will be helped by projects to improve telecommunications
facilities in rural areas. The total amount of online retailing in South Africa was $72.3
49
million (USD) in 1997, and has grown to $390 million at the end of 1999. [42] As in
Malaysia, in early 2000 the South African province of Gauteng promised to invest heavily in
creating an Innovation Hub area which will hopefully bring technology companies to South
Africa. [56]
3.6 Australia
Although Australia is a democratic country, it has one of the most restrictive Internet
free speech policies in the world. In January 2000, the Commonwealth Governments
Internet Censorship legislation came into effect. The bill was rushed through the Senate, and
a preliminary draft was not made available for public comment despite assurances that it
would be. The legislation provides a mechanism for Australian citizens to lodge complaints
about Internet content. The Commonwealth government does not have the jurisdiction to
censor publications or film, but it does have power over television and radio broadcasting. It
is under these powers that it has legislated controls over Internet content. [5]
The Commonwealth has also encouraged the Internet Industry Association (IIA) to
implement a Code of Practice that contains a list of approved filters that ISPs are required
to provide for use, at a charge determined by the ISP. [5] The list of filters was not
determined based on a study of their effectiveness, instead it was based purely on the fact that
the filter supplier incorporated URLs notified by the Australian Broadcasting Authority
(ABA) in the filter blacklists. The ABA has also decided that adult verification systems are
mandatory for sites that contain R-rated content, or adult themes. X-rated content, or
50
sexually explicit content, is effectively banned on the Internet in Australia. The adult
verification system must be based on a reliable method of determining the age of the person,
with credit card verification the preferred method. [5] How effective a system based on
credit card verification is has not been questioned; can a child not get a credit card from their
parents without their knowledge?
Once the Commonwealth passed its legislation, it also started pressuring the States
and Territories to pass legislation covering Internet content. Draft legislation was produced
by many States in 1999, and the first Internet Censorship bill was brought before the
parliament in South Australia in November 2000. [87] This legislation goes further than
even the draft legislation was pressuring for. Having any web-site content that would be
unsuitable for children is illegal, even if the web-site is only made available to adults through
password protection. Content unsuitable for minors is defined in the same way as for films
(since much of the legislation is based on existing legislation for films), i.e. anything with
adult themes. These include: verbal references to and depictions associated with issues
such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol
dependency, death and serious illness, racism, and religious issues. [87]
The prosecution proceedings against content providers can occur before the content
on their site is classified. Since the legislation is based on the film review standards, content
providers are required to guess what classification their content would receive from a panel
of reviewers. Police are allowed to make the judgment on what is unsuitable for minors;
however, they are not trained in such matters and have made numerous errors in the past
when deciding what constitutes unsuitable material in the offline world. Content providers
51
are not even allowed an opportunity to remove the unsuitable material when they
inadvertently miss-guess the classification. [87]
Since the legislation treats the Internet like film, it in effect criminalizes material
online that is not illegal offline. Print material of an adult nature is legally allowed to be
mailed to people, but this would now be illegal online. Furthermore, the fines for making
unsuitable content available on a web-site are exactly double the fines for making an
unsuitable film available in the offline world. [87] Why should the online world face stiffer
fines than the corresponding offline equivalent?
Once other states follow the lead of South Australia and enact their own Internet
legislation, content providers could face charges in other jurisdictions if the classifications
are different there. This places undue burden on content providers to ensure that they do not
have material that would be deemed unsuitable in any jurisdiction in Australia. [87]
What has been the effect of the Australian governments efforts to make the Internet
safe for children? In terms of complaints received by the government from citizens about
unsuitable content, a report:
disclosed that during the period July 1 to Dec. 31, 2000, the ABA issued
67 take-down notices for Internet content housed in Australia, two-thirds of
which involved child pornography. By contrast, the ABA made 136 referrals
about content housed outside Australia to domestic filtering companies.
[89]
This is a very small number of complaints, and a far cry from the massive wave that the
government had expected. This indicates that the government's attempt to curb free speech
52
have so far been largely a waste of resources.

Beyond content regulation of the Internet, another law relating to copyright
infringement has also been enacted. Forwarding e-mail without the permission of the author
is now illegal in Australia. This does not just include copyrighted works such as music or
literature, any e-mail is considered a communication under the Digital Agenda Act, and as
such a person needs permission to forward it. With the sheer volume of e-mail traffic, it
would be impossible to police this. Australias Attorney General Daryl Williams has stated
that forwarding a personal e-mail is unlikely to breach copyright laws, but also suggests
that liability could result if a court determines that the content of the e-mail was an original
literary work. [10]
Overall Australias Internet policies are among the most restrictive to speech in the
world, and with more states passing legislation restricting content, things will only get more
restrictive. The attempt to force the Internet into legislation designed for film has resulted in
ill-fitting laws that ban speech with any hint of controversy. If these laws are allowed to
stand it will result in a very boring Australian Internet experience seemingly designed solely
for children.
Australia has a strong e-commerce base, with 6.5 million people online in 2000 (out
of a population of 19 million). This number is expected to grow to 9.2 million by 2003. The
total e-commerce revenue was $100 million (Australian dollars) in 2000. [21] When the
Internet content regulations were made public, many people had concerns about how it would
affect the e-commerce landscape. Senator John Tierney had this to say in April 1999: what
53
happens in Singapore and Malaysia, which would probably have the most restrictive access
regime in the world by the use of proxy servers to filter out what the government considers to
be unsuitable material. Internet businesses, as we heard last night, are absolutely booming
in Singapore. Having such a restrictive server system does not seem to be restricting any
commerce in those countries. [4] What is ironic about these statements is that both
Malaysia and Singapore have gone back on their restrictive policies, and have pledged not to
censor content on the Internet (although Singapore does block exactly 100 sites deemed
objectionable).
3.7 Europe
3.7.1 Eur opean Union

The European Union provides the framework for laws that supplement the laws that
individual member countries may or may not have. In terms of regulation of harmful
content on the Internet (as opposed to illegal content), the EU has recommended a scheme of
voluntary self-regulation.
In Decision 276/1999/EC, the EU provides funding and
encouragement for industry and users to develop rating systems, and to test and implement
filtering technology. [25]
ISPs have had a rocky road with the regulations passed by the EU in recent years. In
May 1999, the EU passed regulations that made ISPs responsible for policing the material
posted on all sites hosted by them. This meant that ISPs had to monitor all web-sites and
react to illegal material posted before a significant number of people saw it; a nearly
54
impossible task for ISPs. In September 1999 these regulations were relaxed, and ISPs are
currently only liable for illegal content about which they have been notified. [25]
Numbers for the European Union are somewhat misleading because the member
countries vary so much in terms of their contribution to Internet penetration and e-commerce
transaction volume. Still, one can get a good idea of the total contribution of these countries.
The EU has approximately a 13% Internet penetration rate as of the end of 1999. The total
value of e-commerce transactions was Euro $36 billion at the end of 1999, and the annual
growth rate is forecasted at over 100% for the next four years. [25]
3.7.2 Sweden
Sweden has whole-heartedly embraced the Internet; at the beginning of 2000, 42% of
Swedish households had Internet access. Among Swedish teenagers, 97% use the Internet to
some extent, and 71% of people between 16-65 are online. The Swedish government has
implemented policies to enhance broadband network availability for all citizens, even those
in rural areas. Censorship of the Internet has not been an issue in Sweden, and the
government imposes no restrictions on ISPs or on Internet content. [46]
Sweden is seen as a world leader in e-commerce, and is considered second only to the
U.S. in e-commerce market maturity. The government has explicitly recognized the
importance of the Internet to the economy and has enacted legislation to foster e-commerce
growth. E-commerce spending was $2.1 billion (USD) in 2000, and is projected to grow to
55
$8.7 billion by 2002. [46]
3.7.3 United Kingdom

The official position of the UK government is that it wants to provide a light
regulatory touch in order to promote e-commerce. [47] Thus its free speech policies have
been to not explicitly censor content and to rely on existing laws to punish illegal content. In
the early days of the Internet, the government wanted groups such as the Internet Service
Providers Association (ISPA) to develop a code that would cover illegal and undesirable
material. [86] This did not happen.
The government passed legislation making ISPs liable for libelous material posted by
their users, unless they could prove they took measures to prevent the posting, or they
remove the material when notified. The first court case under this law was settled out of
court in March 2000, when Demon Internet agreed to pay damages to an individual because
it failed to remove defamatory material from hosted newsgroups after being notified. [47]
The battle over ISP responsibility is still being waged; in early 2001 the British health
minister sent a heated letter to the ISPA stating that an ISP could be held accountable for
questionable material. The letter was the result of an incident where twins were given up
for adoption to two different sets of parents via the Internet. Obviously, the ISPA protested
that it could not be held accountable for the vast amounts of information posted on its
servers. The health minister officially backed down from his initial position and agreed that
it was an unreasonable idea. [11]
Another major issue in the UK is the intent by many law enforcement agencies to
56
record all e-mails, phone calls, and web-sites accessed by all citizens. As recently as
December 2000, they were pressuring the government to allow them to collect this
information and store it for seven years in order to properly police the Internet. [2] Aside
from obvious privacy concerns, this would have a chilling effect on free speech on the
Internet.
Recently, the government is pushing for legislation that would force computer makers
to pre-install blocking or filtering software on new computers in order to block certain forms
of content. Furthermore, ISPs would be encouraged to offer ratings systems; any ISP
refusing to do so would not receive a family friendly certification from the government. [9]
These are drastic changes that would affect the ability of British citizens to express
themselves online.
The United Kingdom has a very good Internet penetration rate, with 45% of British
adults having access to the Internet either at home or at work in March of 2000. The ecommerce environment is considered to be one of the strongest in Europe, with $11.5 billion
(USD) in e-commerce spending in 2000. This is expected to grow to $47.6 billion by 2002.
[47]
3.7.4 Germany
Germany has been trying to censor pornographic and racist material on the Internet
since the early days. The obvious turmoil Germany has gone through in the past century
explains why it wishes to ban racist and hate-mongering material; however, it has not
57
considered adequately the effect its policies could have on the Internet as a whole.
In 1995, the German government forced Compuserve to shut down access to over 200
newsgroups dealing with pornography. These newsgroups were still accessible by savvy
users of Compuserve who were able to access other hosts which carried the newsgroups.
Three months later the newsgroups were reinstated by Compuserve. [86]
In late 1996, the ultra-leftist publication Radikal published an article detailing how to
derail a train. The publication was banned by German authorities, and paper copies were
destroyed.
The web-site was also shut-down, but soon re-opened on a provider in
neighbouring Denmark. The German government made all the major ISPs block the
particular site, but when it kept changing names it eventually had the ISPs block the entire
domain of the Dutch provider. This led to the blocking of effectively 6000+ web-sites hosted
by the Dutch provider. Soon after mirrors of the blocked site popped up, and the German
government realized that the blockade was a failure. [59]
Turning to racist material, in 1996 many major ISPs in Germany started blocking
access to anti-Semitic material which was hosted in other countries. This type of neo-Nazi
material is illegal in Germany; the most notable site blocked was Ernst Zuendels, a Germanborn neo-Nazi living in Toronto. The site was quickly picked up by many free speech
advocates and mirrored, rendering the German blocking ineffective; the site was still
accessible to German users. [86]
More recently, in December 2000 the German government threatened legal action
against Yahoo Deutschland for selling copies of Hitlers Mein Kampf over the Internet.
German law forbids the sale of the anti-Semitic book to the general public. The book is
58
available in some bookstores in Germany, but cannot be purchased unless the seller can
determine that it is being bought for academic or research purposes. [63] Due to the relative
anonymity provided by the Internet, Yahoo was in essence providing unrestricted access to
the book. It is interesting to note that this was a case of a German company doing business
on the Internet to German customers. The case has since been dropped as of March 2001,
with the German officials stating Yahoo could not be charged with incitement to racial
hatred, because the Internet giant is the provider rather than the person directly offering the
service. [53]
More alarming than the above incident, Germany has also recently decided that
people outside of Germany can be convicted under German law if they post racist material on
sites that can be accessed by Germans. In December 2000, the highest court of Germany
found Australian Holocaust-denier Frederick Tben guilty of spreading Auschwitz lies for
posting material on an Australian site stating that the Holocaust has no historical basis. As of
yet there has been no formal extradition request from Germany, but if Tben returns to
Germany he could face up to five years in jail. [62] If this verdict holds it will set a
dangerous precedent for other countries, as jurisdictions on the Internet are difficult to
determine because of the relative geographic neutrality on the Internet.
The Tben incident has already had repercussions in Germany. The German Central
Council for Jews announced in February 2001 that it was planning to sue ISPs for providing
access to Nazi web-sites. Whether the Nazi sites were located in Germany or not is
apparently unimportant. [52] Cases such as this could easily lead to ISPs filtering content in
order to avoid future lawsuits, effectively chilling free speech on the Internet in Germany.
59
Germany has a very good Internet penetration rate, with 19.5 million people online at
the end of 1999, out of 82.5 million. Germanys e-commerce market is considered very
mature, and the regulatory framework to promote e-commerce is in place. E-commerce
revenues hit $5.6 billion (USD) in 1999, and are projected to reach $62.8 billion in 2002.
[27]
3.7.5 France
France has laws similar to Germany with regards to racist material. Racist goods
cannot be advertised or sold to any French citizen, and this has led to a landmark case that
could have ramifications for the entire Internet. In November 2000, a French court ordered
Yahoo to block French users access to auction sites located on its servers in the United States
that contain Nazi memorabilia. These goods are forbidden by French law to even be
advertised and according to the French court it is Yahoos responsibility to ensure that
French users cannot access these sites. [15] How Yahoo will go about determining the
geographic location of its users is a mystery. A reliable method for determining such
information does not at present exist on the Internet.
Yahoo plans to fight the court ruling on the grounds that it cannot block access
effectively since current technology is unreliable, and in the case of filters, over-broad. [15]
If the case stands, the chilling effect on Internet speech is obvious. Web-site creators would
have to worry about all the countries accessing their site to ensure that they are not offending
any part of the worldwide population.
60
French law with regard to ISPs has changed drastically since the Yahoo ruling. The
French government released a draft Law on the Information Society that makes ISPs liable
for illegal content if they do not remove or deny access to the content upon being informed of
it. This liability applies not only to the ISP, but all the way to the telecom provider.
Furthermore, ISPs are required to keep log files of users activities for one year, effectively
curbing anonymous free speech. [77]
Internet penetration is surprisingly low in France when compared to its neighbouring
countries such as the UK and Germany. There were only 2.9 million Internet users in 1999
(5% out of a population of 59 million). This number is expected to grow to 14% in 2002,
and 18% by 2003. [26] One of the possible reasons for the slow adoption of the Internet is
the existing Minitel system that France Telecom has had since 1983. This text-based system
provides online shopping and information from dumb terminals. [59] People used to the
Minitel system have not seen the benefit of the Internet yet, but are slowly moving towards it.
E-commerce spending in France was $4.6 billion (USD) at the end of 2000, and is expected
to grow to $28.5 billion by the end of 2002. [26]
3.7.6 Spain
Spain has not had any legislation concerning the Internet, but recent attempts by the
government to pass e-commerce legislation has far-reaching ramifications. The Electronic
Commerce Directive is designed to provide a regulatory framework for e-commerce in Spain,
but goes far beyond this:
61
This directive has invented the concept of society of information

services and wants to legislate plain exchange of information as an
economic activity, ruling out therefore, any publisher - like NGOs - which do
not really perform any commercial activities and can not face all the legal
and bureaucratic activities that the Electronic Commerce (Society of
Information Services) Directive wants. [13]
Basically any distribution of information, even if no payment is required to receive the
information, constitutes a society of information services. This implies that the service (i.e.
web-site, newsgroup, etc.) is an economic activity and is subject to registration, consisting of
providing your name and address with your domain name to a public register, and the
publishing of your name/address on your service. This Directive outlaws anonymous websites as well. The legislation explicitly mentions search engines and online compilations of
information (such as newsletters). E-mail is the only form of communication excluded from
the Directive, so long as it is not used for commercial purposes. [13]
Any interaction with the user of your service must be handled as if it were a
commercial transaction, meaning you must use a proper contract, provide the language of
choice, and several other measures which make sense in a commercial environment but are
ludicrous when freely exchanging information. [13]
The Electronic Commerce Directive could have a chilling effect on speech in Spain if
it is allowed to pass in the present form. Any controversial web-site (for example, a human
rights site) which does not want to publish and/or register its name and address will be liable
under the Directive. Any sites critical of the government could be shut down for something
62
as innocuous as not conducting their information exchange with a proper commercial model
(i.e. proper contract, etc.). [13] The burden on non-commercial web-sites would be very
high, as they would not generally have the funds available to handle the bureaucratic hassles
of starting up a web-site.
Spain had a relatively low Internet penetration rate of 8% at the end of 1999, due
mainly to the high connection fees that users experience. Users actually held a loosely
organized strike where they refused to go online on certain days in order to protest the high
prices in 1999. E-commerce spending was $1.8 billion (USD) at the end of 2000, and is
expected to grow to $8.7 billion by 2002. [44]
3.8 North America
3.8.1 Mexico
Mexico has embraced the Internet in recent years, and with infrastructure
enhancements expected, more people will be able to access the Internet through dial-up
accounts. According to IDC Select there were 2.3 million users at the end of 1999, a number
which grew to 3.5 million by the end of 2000, more than a 50% growth. In a population of
95.6 million, this is still a small number, but the growth rates are promising. The Mexican
government has not as of yet moved to restrict freedom of speech on the Internet. In fact, the
Internet has become a powerful medium of dissent in Mexico, with Subcomandante Marcos,
leader of the Zapatista rebellion, using the Internet as an international podium for promoting
63
its cause. [35]

Although the small PC and Internet access penetration has held the e-commerce
sector back somewhat, the future does look bright. According to eMarketer, online sales
amounted to $3.2 billion (USD) at the end of 2000, and will grow to $15 billion by 2003.
When business-to-business transactions are included, Latinexus predicts that the total ecommerce transactions in the year 2003 will be $70 billion. [35]
3.8.2 Canada
As in many European countries, Canada has placed limitations on free speech with
regards to racist and/or hate speech and on child pornography. In the free speech spectrum,
Canada ranks between the United States and European countries such as Germany and
France in terms of the amount of free speech compromised, with the United States coming
closest to the near-absolutist model (at the present time). The Internet free speech issues
raised in Canada vary widely.
The first issue is due to the bilingual nature of Canada. In the French-speaking
province of Quebec, English-only signs are banned in public places. The provincial
government has moved to extend these bilingual standards to the Internet. The first move
occurred in September 1999, when the ISP Bell Canada was ordered to cease offering
Netscape Navigator until it could provide a French-language version.
As it stands,
commercial web-sites catering to the people of Quebec are required to have a French version
of their web-site with the same material as the English version; failure to do so results in a
64
fine. [51]
Racist speech is of great concern in the multicultural environment of Canada. In
1998, Fairview Technology Centre Ltd., an ISP located in Oliver, BC, was accused of
hosting many racist and hate literature web-sites. Investigations were undertaken, but no
formal charges were ever laid. The ISP officially halted business while the investigations
were underway, however it promptly returned to business months later, but this time the hate
literature was disguised in more indirect links. [18]
Laws pertaining to the possession and distribution of child pornography also exist in
Canada. The current laws state that it is illegal to possess child pornography, even if you do
not distribute it to any other person. This law was recently tested in the case of John Robin
Sharpe of British Columbia, who was accused of possessing child pornography in 1998. The
B.C. Supreme Court found that the possession law went against the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, and recently the Supreme Court of Canada said that people cant be prosecuted
for creating photographic or written porn as long as it's designed for their own use and as
long as real photos don't show unlawful acts. [80]
Canada has a very mature e-commerce environment, with a regulatory framework in
place conducive to e-commerce. At the end of 1999 there were 12.5 million people online
out of a population of 30.6 million, a very high Internet penetration rate. E-commerce
revenues were $28 billion (USD) in 1999, and Canada enjoys a 7% share of global ecommerce. [23]
65
3.8.3 United States of America

Although the U.S. has strong constitutional protection of free speech, the Internet has
been a contentious issue for lawmakers. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was an
attempt by the United States government to limit minors from accessing material on the
Internet that was indecent or patently offensive. It was intentionally vague in terms of
whether it applied to both commercial and non-commercial speech. There were many
reasons why it was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, not the least of which were
the fact that it was broad in the scope of material it applied to, and that it would have placed
too heavy a burden on an adults access to such material. [6]
The Child Online Protection Act is the second attempt by the government to achieve
the goal of protecting minors from accessing harmful material. This time, the Act is much
more narrowly tailored; it is targeted at commercial speech that is harmful to minors. Any
site selling material that is harmful to minors must have appropriate safeguards to
reasonably ensure that minors cannot access it; this can take the form of adult Ids, credit card
checks, or digital age certificates. [67]
Notice that the words indecent and patently offensive, which had vague definitions
in the CDA, have been replaced by harmful to minors. In the COPA, this is defined as:
Any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording,
writing, or other matter of any kind that
(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would
find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, that such
material is designed to appeal to or panders to the prurient interest;
66
(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect

to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or
simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the
genitals or female breast; and
(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific
value for minors. [69]
This is similar to the Ginsberg test for obscenity which has been used in the U.S. in cases
related to pornography and other questionable material. [67]
The constitutionality of the COPA is still being decided upon. The American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) has argued in the courts regarding the constitutionality of the Act.
Philadelphia Judge Lowell Reed had issued an injunction preventing the enforcement of the
Act, and the Act was found unconstitutional in June of 2000 by a federal appeals court. [81,
1] Recently the Attorney General petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Act, and this
will occur in the near future. [1] Thus, the COPA is following the same route as the CDA;
first a loss in the lower courts, and then a final decision being made by the Supreme Court.
As outlined in the last chapter, the U.S. has also recently passed the Childrens
Internet Protection Act which requires all public libraries and schools that receive
government funding to use some form of blocking or filtering technology on their computers.
The constitutionality of this legislation will also be tested in the courts. [8]
The United States has the strongest e-commerce sector in the world, and the largest
share of the e-commerce marketplace. The Internet penetration rate is now at 31% and
67
should reach 56% by 2003. E-commerce revenues were $74.5 billion (USD) in 1999, and are
projected to reach $851.4 billion by 2003. [48] It is interesting to note that many of the
arguments against proposed bills such as the CDA and COPA have revolved around the
possible negative effects they would have on the e-commerce environment. [69]
3.9 Summary
As can be seen from the above summaries, countries vary widely in the free speech
policies that they apply to the Internet. The e-commerce landscapes differ just as greatly. It
is interesting to note that even within each region it is easy to find a wide range of policies
and e-commerce revenues. At present it is difficult to characterize the free speech policy that
a country chooses based on the geographic location of the country (and this is not the intent
of this thesis). The next chapter attempts to find some relations between e-commerce
concerns and the free speech policy of any particular country.
68
Chapter 4
Analysis
4.1 Intr oduction
The continued commercialization of the Internet has become a central part of the
economies of most countries in the world. On an intuitive level, the free speech policies with
respect to the Internet taken by the government of a particular country should affect the
development of the e-commerce sector. Finding absolute measures of how a change in free
speech policy can affect e-commerce growth would be difficult if not impossible since ecommerce is affected by so many factors (including computer penetration, legal and political
infrastructure, etc), and is not the intent of this thesis. However, it is possible to see how ecommerce concerns have affected the Internet free speech policies of different countries. In
other words, how much has the concern of restrictive free speech policies stifling ecommerce growth affected said policies?
4.2 Categories of Effect
What follows is a breakdown of all the countries surveyed in the last chapter into
69
three categories: those where e-commerce concerns have had a large, moderate, or negligible
effect on free speech policies. This grouping into categories is somewhat subjective as there
is no clear line between categories, but some rationale for choosing which category a country
belongs in is given in each section.
4.2.1 Large Effect

To say that e-commerce concerns have had a large effect on the free speech policies
chosen by a particular country's government, there has to be a strong connection between the
two. This connection can be in the form of a strong statement made by the government
explicitly mentioning that e-commerce concerns have prompted them to adopt specific
speech policies, or a reversal of policy that was very clearly done due to pressure from the ecommerce sector.
The Argentinian government enacted a Presidential Decree in 1997 explicitly stating
that in order to encourage the growth of the Internet, it would not in any way interfere, filter,
or block Internet content. It even went as far as to require all ISPs to include a statement in
their user invoices informing their customers that the government will not censor content,
and if users are concerned about their childrens access they should exercise reasonable
control through education or filtering/blocking software. [59] Clearly the government views
e-commerce growth as having a significant dependence on a free and uncensored Internet
being provided to Argentinians.
Situated in the Middle East, Jordan is surrounded by countries with very restrictive
free speech policies. When the Internet was first introduced to Jordan in 1995, the
70
government required ISPs to block all sexually explicit material; a requirement that was
quickly dropped as more ISPs arrived. [86,59] The government realized the opportunity the
Internet represented and dropped its restrictive policies to encourage e-commerce growth.
This has occurred in Jordan, and in fact many users in neighbouring countries open accounts
in Jordan and pay the long distance rates just to have access to an uncensored Internet. [59]
Jordan has committed to keeping the Internet free of censorship in order to help the ecommerce sector.
Malaysia has in the past censored the Internet when controversial political situations
arose. [66] However, in 1999 the Prime Minister created the Multimedia Super Corridor
(MSC), a technology park designed to entice technology corporations to come to Malaysia.
As part of this plan, the Prime Minister also pledged not to impose censorship of any kind to
the Internet in Malaysia, amid much protest from more conservative elements of Malaysian
society. [88,34] The success of the MSC will mean that the Internet stays free; failure means
censorship will return. The pledge represents a huge endorsement of how a free and open
Internet is vitally important to successful e-commerce growth.
Singapore is another country that has shown a large recognition of the importance of
free speech to Internet growth. Initially all Internet access was routed through a government
portal, where filters were used to weed out offensive material (mostly pornographic and
politically critical material). [86] Today, only about 100 sites are explicitly blocked by the
government, all of them pornographic, in order to send a message to citizens that the
government does not approve of these sites. No other sites other than these 100 are blocked.
[70] This lessening of a very restrictive free speech policy was explicitly done in order to
71
encourage e-commerce growth. This is an important development, as Singapore has

historically been a country that is quick to sacrifice individual rights for the good of society.
The fact that it was willing to provide very close to uncensored (100 sites is a drop in the
water compared to the millions of web-sites that exist) Internet access speaks to its
perception of how important free speech is to e-commerce growth.
The situation in Spain is a case where e-commerce concerns have had a very large
effect on free speech on the Internet - although not in the same sense as in other countries.
The government of Spain passed the Electronic Commerce Directive to provide a regulatory
framework for e-commerce, but the net effect of it is to treat any distribution of electronic
information as an economic activity; meaning that the parties must register with a public
authority, among other things. [13] It is easy to see how this legislation greatly affects free
speech on the Internet in Spain; for example, anonymous web-sites are now outlawed. The
Directive seems to be a product of legislators not understanding the technology well enough
and passing a law that has far-ranging effects not originally envisioned.
4.2.2 Moder ate Effect

In many countries e-commerce concerns have been somewhat important to the
shaping of Internet speech policies. While they may not be the main driving force behind the
adoption of particular policies, there is clear evidence that the effect of such policies on the ecommerce landscape have been very seriously considered.
Hong Kong has maintained a mostly free and open Internet as compared to China
which has enacted very restrictive policies. The only restriction is that obscene material may
72
not be posted by web-site creators in Hong Kong, but material from other countries is not
blocked or filtered. [59] China seems to be using Hong Kong to see what happens when the
Internet remains free and unfiltered. E-commerce concerns seem to be driving this hands-off
approach that China has adopted in its Internet policies in Hong Kong. With a strong ecommerce sector in Hong Kong, China may be wary of imposing restrictive policies that
could stifle growth.
India has just recently given thought to regulating the Internet. The IT Act 2000
aimed at providing a regulatory framework for e-commerce, and while harmful content is
made illegal, it is not the main focus of the legislation. Indian society is generally
conservative and one would assume that dealing with harmful content would be the first
priority of lawmakers. The fact that facilitating e-commerce has been the number one
concern implies that the Indian government sees a strong correlation between a free and open
Internet and e-commerce growth.
The Internet in Russia is not officially seen as a mass media, a classification that
would entail much more government regulation. This lack of classification is not just an
oversight since new media laws specifically exclude the Internet from government
jurisdiction. [39] Although e-commerce concerns are not explicitly mentioned as the reason
for not classifying the Internet as mass media, it would seem to be the driving motivation.
The Internet is seen as a vital tool for economic growth in Russia, and the government seems
to view free speech as important to making the Internet economically viable.
The South Korean government has been anxious to censor the Internet since its
inception, but had steered clear from doing so due to its desire to foster e-commerce growth.
73
[86] Recently, however, the government has passed legislation to have filtering software
installed on all computers in public places such as libraries and schools. [64] It seems that
the years of a relatively free Internet in South Korea have ended, and the more conservative
elements of South Korean society have triumphed over that segment concerned with
economic growth. Still, it is interesting to note that the perceived importance of e-commerce
kept the Internet free for over seven years in South Korea.
The United Kingdom has explicitly stated that it wishes to provide a light regulatory
touch in order to promote e-commerce. It has ignored calls to censor content and instead
relies on existing laws to punish illegal content. [86] This standpoint shows how important
the United Kingdom views an uncensored Internet as being to the growth of the e-commerce
sector.
The United States enjoys strong free speech protection within its Constitution, and
these rights have been at the core of attacks to any Internet censorship bills that have been
proposed. However, a significant argument made against proposed bills such as the
Communications Decency Act and the Child Online Protection Act is the adverse effect on ecommerce that such legislation would have. [69] Economists are routinely asked to
comment on how the restrictions contained in these bills would affect e-commerce, and the
universal answer is a resounding negative effect.
With the strongest e-commerce
environment in the world, the United States as a whole has been wary of allowing legislation
that may slow this growth although the government has not given up on the idea.
While Vietnam has a seemingly very restrictive policy with regards to the Internet, on
closer inspection it is not as restrictive as it could be. It admits to censoring sites dealing
74
with controversial political views, but the censorship is not very thorough as many sites get
through. This is not a mere oversight, as it is more likely that the government allows
basically unfiltered access in order to encourage adoption of this new technology by the
population. [59] Vietnam has historically been quick to adopt new technologies, and it
seems in this case it wishes to establish the Internet, with the long-term goal of fostering ecommerce growth.
4.2.3 Negligible Effect

There are many countries where the Internet is not mature enough for the issue of
censorship to arise. Most of these countries have other more pressing needs to address,
ranging from recent wars or the threat of future wars, abject poverty, lack of technology, etc.
As pertains to the countries surveyed in this paper, the following countries have not
addressed the issue of free speech on the Internet: Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Mexico,
Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.
Beyond the above countries which are at an earlier stage of Internet adoption, there
are many countries where e-commerce concerns have not been considered when adopting
Internet speech policies. The reasons for ignoring the e-commerce sector vary widely; from
censorship not being an issue to the other extreme where e-commerce concerns are explicitly
ignored in order to uphold the values that the government deems important to their society.
Canada and Israel both have strong free speech ideals and have kept the Internet
relatively uncensored, while using existing laws to punish illegal content. The Internet has
not been kept free specifically because of e-commerce concerns, but more because of the
75
ideals that their respective societies hold with regards to free expression.
Sweden is the one country surveyed where there is both a thriving e-commerce
environment and no censorship of any kind. Censorship is not an issue in Sweden and the
government has gone to great lengths to make sure everyone has access to the Internet with
no restrictions. The freedom given to the Internet is more a reflection of the attitudes of
Swedish society than an assertion of the importance of freedom of speech to e-commerce.
Germany and France have both decided to apply their existing hate speech laws in
very broad ways to the Internet. So broad, in fact, that in some cases they hope to apply their
laws to web-sites outside of their borders. Clearly the potential harm they might do to their
e-commerce environment is not an issue in these countries.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both funnel all Internet content through government
portals that filter out pornographic, political, and anti-Islamic material before it reaches the
user. These countries are not concerned about the possible negative affect these harsh
restrictions might have on e-commerce, they are more concerned with upholding the morals
of their respective societies.
China initially funneled all Internet content through government servers to block sites
deemed objectionable. As it realized the economic potential of the Internet, it gradually
lessened its control. This lasted until the year 2000, when China started rolling out more and
more legislation designed to allow the government to regain control of the Internet. [76] The
government is not concerned with the possibility that e-commerce will suffer due to these
restrictions; it is more concerned with regaining control. China is potentially a huge Internet
market, and the government seems content in forcing businesses to do things its way rather
76
than in accepting a free and open Internet for its citizens.

Australia is an interesting case of where e-commerce concerns have been completely
ignored and freedom of speech has been compromised with gusto. The federal government
has created a system for citizens to lodge complaints against offensive sites, and at least one
state government has banned adult-oriented web-sites completely. [5,87] When questions
were asked as to the effect of these restrictive policies on the e-commerce landscape, a
government official pointed to Malaysia and Singapore as countries with very restrictive
policies where e-commerce is thriving. [4] Ironically, both Malaysia and Singapore have
drastically scaled back their restrictive policies specifically due to e-commerce concerns.
Both countries started out by filtering all content through government portals in order to filter
out objectionable material; Singapore now only filters out about 100 sites, and Malaysia has
pledged to keep the Internet free of censorship. [70,34] It remains to be seen if Australia
realizes how much potential damage it could do to its e-commerce sector and relaxes its
policies.
4.3 Timeline of Control
So far we have seen how e-commerce concerns can affect the free speech policies of
many countries; we now turn our attention to the timing of changes in free speech policies. It
is interesting to survey those countries that moved from a restrictive Internet free speech
policy to a free and open one, and vice-versa. In particular the timings of such shifts in
policy are important. Many countries are not included in this discussion because their
77
policies have remained relatively unchanged since embracing the Internet. These countries
are: Argentina, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa, and Sweden. This is
not to say that all of these countries have a completely uncensored Internet, only that their
policies have been consistent since the Internet was brought into the country. Other countries
where the Internet is not mature enough to consider their paths are: Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Mexico,
Nigeria, and Sri Lanka.
The first class of countries are those which have gone from centrally-controlled
content filtering to a much more liberal free speech policy. Of the countries surveyed in the
last chapter, Jordan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam fit this profile. Jordan and Malaysia
went from content-filtering to no censorship of any kind, while Singapore and Vietnam both
reduced their content-filtering considerably. In all cases the easing up of restrictive policies
was done explicitly to help foster e-commerce growth. This seems to be a common path of
more conservative countries; when first introduced, the Internet is seen as something that
needs to be tightly controlled, but when e-commerce is recognized as important to the
economy the restrictions are largely eased. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also both filter content
through government portals, but the Internet is relatively new in these countries so as ecommerce becomes more important to their economies they may follow the same path as
other conservative countries and open up the Internet.
The second class of countries are those which went from (or are going from) a liberal
free speech policy to a more restrictive one. Australia, France, South Korea, Spain, the
United Kingdom, and the United States fit this profile, although to varying degrees. In all
cases the Internet has been accessible for many years and has been kept uncensored, but
78
recently the governments have passed legislation designed to bring the Internet back into
some form of control. Australia, South Korea and Spain are at one extreme where new
policies drastically curtail free speech on the Internet, while France has recently started
applying its existing laws to the Internet on a large scale. The United Kingdom is on the
verge of restricting free speech drastically, while the United States can also be argued to be
following this profile since it is making attempts to control access to objectionable material.
In all of these countries it is likely that one of the reasons that the Internet was allowed to be
free for a significant amount of time was to allow the e-commerce sector time to develop.
Once an infrastructure was in place, the respective governments decided to start exercising
more control over content. There are other countries in an earlier stage of Internet maturity
that may follow this same path, in particular India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Russia.
All of these countries currently have a relatively uncensored Internet, but are likely to push
for more control once a strong e-commerce foundation has been laid.
China has not followed either of the above paths, and has not remained the same
since first embracing the Internet either. It went from full government control to a less
restrictive system, and is now successfully enacting legislation to regain control of the
Internet again. China seems to be an outlier case because of its sheer size and conviction to
do things its own way. E-commerce concerns have not been central to the decision-making
process; China is more concerned with keeping the Internet under tight control.
4.4 Summary
79
As seen in the above discussion, e-commerce concerns can have a strong influence on
the choice of free speech policy, as well as the timeline of changes to these policies. These
concerns can open up the Internet in restrictive countries where governments filter out
controversial material, or they can delay the adoption of restrictive policies in others.
Regardless, all countries seem to acknowledge the importance of e-commerce at some point
in their Internet development and make changes to their online speech policies accordingly.
80
Chapter 5
Conclusions
The free speech policies chosen by a particular country are the product of many
factors, including the religious and cultural heritage of the people, the ideals the government
wants to uphold, and economic concerns. The Internet presents a unique opportunity to
engage in new models of commerce that have never been seen before, but this power is a
double-edged sword. Along with electronic commerce activities, a plethora of other,
possibly offensive, material is available on the Internet, and each country must make
decisions on how much control to exercise over it.
The desire to foster the growth of the e-commerce sector can indeed have a strong
effect on the free speech policy that a country chooses. It can keep the more conservative
elements of society who want strict controls at bay for a significant amount of time, or it can
break down existing controls in order to reap economic benefit. Rarely are economic
concerns completely ignored; all countries acknowledge the importance of e-commerce to
their economy at some point in their Internet development.
Countries differ in their levels of Internet maturity, and subsequently their free speech
policies also vary. There is no single path that the free speech policy of a particular country
will follow, but there are noticeable trends. Countries will generally follow one of three
paths: start with a restrictive policy and then relax it to foster economic growth, start with an
81
open policy and then bring in restrictions once the e-commerce sector is developed, or
maintain a consistent free speech policy over time. These are not the only possibilities;
however, all but one of the countries surveyed in this thesis that had a mature Internet
environment were on one of these paths. The results for the countries surveyed in Chapter 3
are summarized in Table 5.1.i
Path
Restrictive To Open
Free Speech Policy
Open To Restrictive Free

Speech Policy
Consistent Free
Speech Policy
Countries
Currently
On Path
Jordan
Malaysia
Singapore
Vietnam
Australia
France
South Korea
Spain
United Kingdom
United States of America
Argentina
Canada
Germany
Hong Kong
Israel
South Africa
Sweden
Countries
That May
Follow
Path
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
India
Indonesia
Philippines
Russia
N/A
Table 5.1: Paths of Free Speech Policies
Since free speech policies are constantly evolving, future work in this area should
focus on updating the policies for countries surveyed in this thesis. It will be interesting to
see if countries that were shown to be at a particular stage of a path actually do follow the
Those countries surveyed in Chapter 3 that do not have a mature Internet environment are not included in Table 5.1:
Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka.
82
path over time. As more countries come online and start tapping the economic potential of
the Internet, they can be analyzed as in this thesis and the path of changes to their free speech
policy predicted. This thesis has shown the importance of e-commerce concerns to the free
speech policy chosen by a particular country; this should not be overlooked in future
discussions of freedom of expression on the Internet.
83
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93

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Free Speech on the Global Internet:

The Role of E-Commerce

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

The University of British Columbia

Free Speech and Censorship

2 Blocking And Filtering

2.1.1 Private Blocking

Problems with Blocking/Filtering

2.2.1 COPA Commission

2.3.1 Legal Positions on Filtering in the U.S.

2.3.2 Filtering Around the World

3.2.2 Hong Kong

3.2.9 South Korea

3.2.10 Sri Lanka

3.4.1 Saudi Arabia

3.4.3 Iran and Iraq

3.5.2 South Africa

3.7.1 European Union

3.7.3 United Kingdom

3.8.3 United States of America

4.2.1 Large Effect

4.2.2 Moderate Effect

4.2.3 Negligible Effect

HARINDER SINGH KHANGURA

1.1 Free Speech and Censorship

E-commerce is a new phenomenon that has resulted from the rapid

predominantly a business issue, enabled by information technology. [75] The ability to do

Blocking and Filtering

2.1 Intr oduction

2.1.1 Pr ivate Blocking

2.2 Problems with Blocking/Filtering

2.2.1 COPA Commission

Rather, the Commission determined that a

combination of public education, consumer empowerment technologies and

more education, more technologies, heightened public awareness of existing

The COPA Commission was composed of a wide variety of people especially

2.3 Filtering Legislation

2.3.1 Legal Positions on Filtering in the U.S.

content-based restrictions on speech must be justified by a compelling

2.3.2 Filtering Ar ound the World

They filter for

Blocking and filtering technology is increasingly being seen as a solution to the

IIS providers shall not produce, reproduce, release, or disseminate information

With the release of the new Measures for Managing Internet

3.2.2 Hong Kong

however, since up to four people can share a single account. [38]

3.2.9 South Kor ea

The 1995 Law on

Operational Investigations, a law which allows security services to monitor communications

3.3 South America

3.4 Middle East

3.4.1 Saudi Ar abia

shortcoming is addressed e-commerce should grow by leaps and bounds.

3.4.3 Iran and Iraq

3.4.4 Jor dan

imposed on the user. [59]

the Internet may start to flourish in Nigeria. [36]

3.5.2 South Afr ica

have so far been largely a waste of resources.

3.7.1 Eur opean Union

In Decision 276/1999/EC, the EU provides funding and

$8.7 billion by 2002. [46]

3.7.3 United Kingdom