Defamation on Internet: Comparative Study of India, United States and United Kingdom

Abstract

The definition of the Internet is a largely uncontroversial matter. In technical terms, the Internet is essentially “a decentralized, self-maintained telecommunications network.” There is, however, nothing ordinary about the benefits associated with such a telecommunications network. The Internet provides its users with a previously unprecedented ability to communicate. E-mail provides virtually instantaneous global messaging, and information published on the world-wide-web (a subset of the Internet) is viewable and usable upon creation, by any person with a connection to the Internet. In becoming a medium used by hundreds of millions of people, the Internet has become an essential tool for commerce. The U.S. Supreme Court provided its impressions of the Internet in 1997, labelling the Internet “a unique medium - known to its users as ‘cyberspace’ - located in no particular geographical location but available to anyone, anywhere in the world.” This description provides but a glimpse of the jurisdictional problems that have arisen as a result of the emergence of such a “revolutionary” medium.