Regulation and the internet

Citation

Schwartz, D.G. (2005), "Regulation and the internet", Internet Research, Vol. 15 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.2005.17215daa.001

Regulation and the internet

Proposals to restrict or regulate internet and web-based activities are usually immediately met with negative reactions from proponents of personal freedom, privacy, and free markets. Yet there is fairly broad consensus when it comes to societal taboos, such as human slavery, child pornography, theft, fraud, and the like that we desire and value the efforts of governing and regulatory bodies in preventing or protecting us from these activities. On the one hand we see the tremendous positive potential for the internet’s impact on society, global trade, and communications and are thus troubled by the fact that anyone would attempt to put a damper on this untapped potential through regulation. On the other hand we realise that many of society’s ills and deficiencies can be amplified and broadened should the internet be harnessed to achieve negative goals.

What makes the issue a contentious one with respect to the internet is that we are not yet familiar enough with the internet’s potential to serve as a platform for either good or evil nor is it clear whether lines can be drawn between those areas in which we desire regulation and control, and those areas in which we do not.

There are many areas of research and development to be explored in dealing with these problems. We need to understand the extent of the problem, explore ways in which different societies view the nature of the problem and test technologies that can enhance or reduce our ability to deal with the problem.

This issue of internet research presents three papers that deal with different aspects of regulating the internet. Yang begins with his study of, “Consumers’ attitudes toward regulation of internet auction sites: a third person effect perspective”. He identifies a specific subset of regulation; introduces us to a technique from communications theory to help study the problem; and shows how at least one section of Taiwanese society reacts to the potential threats and regulatory response.

Increased regulation does not necessarily need to result in reduced levels of privacy. That, at least, is what Elovici, Glezer, and Shapira, attempt to achieve in “Enhancing customer privacy while searching for products and services on the world wide web”. With a starting assumption that anonymity will cease being a viable option for online consumers, they explore a model that helps restore privacy even when anonymity is revoked.

Regulation almost always necessitates identification mechanisms and with identification comes the need to confirm and validate digital action. If we are to provide robust mechanisms that indicate intent, we must also consider ways in which intent can be modified or withdrawn. Lekkas, Gritzalis, and Mitrou, begin to tackle this problem in “Withdrawing a declaration of will: towards a framework for digital signature revocation”.

Rounding out this issue we have Chen and Luh, with “Web page prediction from metasearch results”; Flavian, Guinaliu, and Torres, discussing “The influence of corporate image on consumer trust: a comparative analysis in traditional vs internet banking”; and Johnson and Johnson, who present an “Integrated strategy of industrial product suppliers: working with B2B intermediaries.”

I write this editorial as I return home from the annual W3C conference, WWW2005, held this year in Japan. Now in its 14th year, this year’s conference was proudly sponsored by Emerald Publishing and Internet Research and it was, as always, an outstanding opportunity to hear about some of the leading edge research being done in the WWW community. The opening keynote, given once again by Tim Berners-Lee, was an inspiring talk entitled “WWW at 15 years: looking forward”. After touching upon a number of user interface issues and the emerging semantic web, Tim delved into the mobile web and officially announced the W3C mobile web initiative. Slides from the keynote and details on the MWI can be found at www.w3.org/2005/Talks/0511-keynote-tbl/. As the W3C conference enters its 15th year, and Internet Research heads toward its 16th volume, the excitement surrounding internet and WWW research remains as strong as ever.

David G. Schwartz