Building Electronic Borders
from the what-to-do-about-nation-states dept
This has been discussed before, but this is a good summary article looking at a lot of the issues raised by electronic borders. With different laws in different countries, how do you police something universal, like the internet. Many companies are trying to come up with products that identify where you're coming from, and then won't allow you to visit certain sites that might be illegal in that country. Of course, these systems don't work all that well, and there are always ways around them. However, many people point out that they don't have to work that well to be basically effective. Personally, I think most of these efforts are a waste of time. All the various governments are doing is spending an awful lot of time and money to keep their populations less well informed. The people who they really don't want to get the info will figure out a way around it any way. So, all that time and money goes to waste.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
