The Internet has been romanticized as a zone of freedom. The alluring combination of sophisticated technology with low barriers to entry and instantaneous outreach to millions of users has mesmerized libertarians and communitarians alike. Lawmakers have joined the celebration, passing the Communications Decency Act, which enables Internet Service Providers to allow unregulated discourse without danger of liability, all in the name of enhancing freedom of speech. But an unregulated Internet is a breeding ground for offensive conduct. At last we have a book that begins to focus on abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability, and lack of oversight. The distinguished scholars assembled in this volume, drawn from law and philosophy, connect the absence of legal oversight with harassment and discrimination. Questioning the simplistic notion that abusive speech and mobocracy are the inevitable outcomes of new technology, they argue that current misuse is the outgrowth of social, technological, and legal choices. Seeing this clearly will help us to be better informed about our options. In a field still dominated by a frontier perspective, this book has the potential to be a real game changer. Armed with example after example of harassment in Internet chat rooms and forums, the authors detail some of the vile and hateful speech that the current combination of law and technology has bred. The facts are then treated to analysis and policy prescriptions. Read this book and you will never again see the Internet through rose-colored glasses.

Concise and Abridged Edition In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can’t-Say-That.

This book breaks down the complicated decision-making process involved in establishing an Internet presence and in creating an intranet. It provides simplified problem-solving steps that will help you confidently plan, develop, implement, and manage a corporate-wide Internet or Intranet strategy. You'll find all the tools you need here in a format you can put to work right away. Planning questions, checklists, and examples help you analyze your company's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses, enabling you to create a customized plan for maximum impact—or if you're already on-line—to evaluate, enhance, and redefine your current Internet/intranet strategy. Richard J. Gascoyne is a Director at Claremont Technology Group, a leader in innovative business and systems consulting. He works with leading organizations to build effective Internet and intranet business and technology strategies.

Provides guidelines to the constraints and potential liabilities placed on companies by the US Telecommunications Act of 1996. The text covers management of Internet access, the legalities of service providers, how to keep outsiders out and insiders in, an

Demonstrates how to enter into imaginative dialogue with a text, using as an example a novel by the 17th-century Korean court official Kim Manjung. By applying to fiction personal queries about the nature of philosophical discourse and the forms it takes, Bantly (Buddhist studies, Georgetown U.) allows the text to answer questions the author never addressed. Also shows the use of the imagination in reconstructing the society and religious context in which the text was written. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Illuminating the reality of worldwide access to information, this expanded three-volume set is a one-stop resource for Internet history, biographies of key figures, and analysis of how the Internet operates. The first version of this reference won the RUSA Award for Outstanding Reference Source in 2000. Now expanded to three volumes, the new edition includes a fully revised and extended chronology volume, a volume of biographies, and a volume with articles analyzing key Internet issues. The set also offers many fascinating tidbits about the Internet, including the fact that the phrase surfing the Internet was coined in 1992 by librarian Jean Armour Polly in an article in the Wilson Library Bulletin. This set covers the earliest roots of the Internet, from events dating as far back as the 1800s and the invention of the telephone all the way to the founding of news agencies, the first steps toward digital computing, and the development of computing technology, telecommunications, and media. This work will be of interest to students of mass media, gender, business, and social history as well as technology. - Includes a chronology with 200 entries and sidebars that begins in the 19th century - The Chronology volume contains an extensive bibliography with hundreds of suggestions for further research - Provides a glossary of Internet-related acronyms and technological terms - The Issues and Biography volumes have lengthy Further Reading sections that follow every article

This volume contains articles on the Net and Cyberspace. It examines the arrival of E-mail and online discussion groups, and considers the prospects for an "online world" - a playground for virtual bodies in which identities are flexible and disconnected from real-world bodies.

The opening chapters deal with copyright and patent issues , both to introduce an area of law that is of considerable importance in practice, and to lay a foundation for understanding the unique features of computer technology as an intellectual creation. Other intellectual property issues are then discussed, focusing on attempts by businesses to use intellectual property to seize or maintain ownership of industry standards. Maggs (law, U. of Illinois-Urbana- Champaign), John T. Soma (law, U. of Denver), and James A. Sprowl, in private practice, thought to revise their computer law case book of a decade ago, but decided to start over instead. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)