My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, freely available version, BBC International version) examines the recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Yahoo decision involving the long-running battle over Internet jurisdiction.

I argue that while the legal and jurisdictional implications are important, the Internet considerations highlight the complexity associated with the online world and geographic borders.  For the majority of the court, the combination of the expert panel evidence and the decision by the French court to limit its restrictions to French users yielded the view that offline geographic borders can be applied to the Internet.

The dissenting judges presented a much different view of the Internet, concluding that the impact of the order could not be confined solely to France.  Moreover, they were skeptical of the expert panel' s evidence, deriding it as being "replete with hearsay, technological assumptions and disclaimers."

Ironically, the real problem with the expert evidence is not its degree of accuracy, but rather that it is now woefully out-of-date.  There have been significant advances in Internet geolocation technologies, such that Internet sites can identify with increasing accuracy the offline location of their online users. 

The Yahoo! France case resulted in nearly six years of litigation, numerous legal briefs, and much hand wringing from the Internet community.  Despite its notoriety, it would appear that the courts remains as conflicted as ever as they seek to reconcile the challenges of law, borders and the Internet.