Collaboration Technology 2.0

Oh, come on! The comment about "world domination" really is not called for. There are plenty of cases of non-US courts seeking to impose their law on US-based operations. The most recent to come to mind is just a few weeks ago, French courts fining eBay for violations of Louis Vuitton intellectual property by eBay users. A US court, on the other hand, just held that eBay was not liable for essentially the same thing in a suit brought by a US company, Tiffany & Co.

Until the day, if it ever comes, where there is a broad international agreement in place covering these very complex issues, it will be necessary to watch closely how ALL nation's legal systems treat these issues.

Yes, but US DoJ has a tendency to jail first and ask questions later I refer you to http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Articles-Notes/online-gambling-arrests.htm , however as you can see (and I agree about France) US tends to be more draconian than most.

Again, you are far over the line. Can you show a single case in which an Internet service has not been given the full benefit of due process in the US? I fully grant that the current administration's policy on terror suspects can in fact be fairly characterized as "jail first and ask questions later", or even as "jail first and ask questions never". I fully grant that the current administration ran roughshod over the telecoms, again in the name of the "war on terror". These are legitimate issues of grave concern to many of here in the US, but I'm not aware of any case where an Internet service has been subjected to "jail first". Are you? That article you referred to does not point to a single example that fits that description. All the cases involved appropriate warrants, indictments, and the rest of our system of due process -- at either the Federal, or in several of the cases State government level.

Yahoo has had to deal with Chinese law, and with the possibility that obeying Chinese law may have put them in violation of US law -- and certainly caused them no end of bad publicity. Google has lost trademark rights to "GMail" in Germany. The EU has warned Google about privacy concerns with respect to their "Street View" feature. There are plenty of more examples. In general, Internet users are more at risk with respect to free speech issues in just about any country other than the US, but in a number of other areas the laws on our books are more strict than in most other places. This stuff is complex, and it is ubiquitous. Take the US out of the equation and there are still minefields all over the place.

Richard - thanks for demonstrating more than a single case. As for US not following its own 'due process' I never accused anyone of that.

My case rests.