This just released survey of nearly 300 companies in 45 different countries found that U.S. companies were far more concerned and pessimistic about Internet jurisdiction risk than European and Asian companies. It also found that an "Internet jurisdiction risk toolkit" is emerging where companies target low risk jurisdictions and take steps to avoid doing business in perceived high risk jurisdictions. No surprise with who was most affected by Internet jurisdictional issues -- in light of cases such as Yahoo! France and Gutnick -- it was media companies that were most likely to have responded to jurisdictional issues. It was also quite troubling that respondents in developing countries, particularly in Latin America, experienced significant difficulty in completing the survey as many organizational representatives candidly admitted that they were unfamiliar with Internet jurisdiction risks and with their organization's approach to the issues. Michael Geist's Law Bytes column in the Toronto Star discussed this study and is available by clicking here. This will be added to Legal Resources 2004 Internet MiniGuide.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:10 AM
