Internet law refers to the body of legislation that governs the use of the internet. Internet law is tricky considering that the internet is not actually owned by any one nation. Therefore many internet laws run into issues of jurisdiction and enforceability.
The U.S. does not have comprehensive laws regarding privacy and data protection. Some government organizations even have the legal right to invade the privacy of private citizens. Protecting data and preventing its sale is a hotly debated topic in modern internet law discourse.
Internet law is relatively lax when it comes to copyright protection for intellectual property. Because there are so many users of the internet, individual cases of copyright infringement must be reported to the site host in order to have the infringing content taken down.
In general, individual websites are not responsible for the user-generated content that appears on their platform as long as the host is making a good faith effort to moderate the content of their site. In the United States, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act offers broad protection for online web hosts who feature user-generated content.
In general, cybercrimes such as fraud, harassment, or extortion that occur over the internet are charged with the relevant crime for their jurisdiction with an additional charge of misuse of mail or wire services added. Penalties for these crimes correspond to the non-internet variety and feature fines, imprisonment, or other criminal penalties.
