Law in the Information Society

It strikes me as I read the article by Wisebrod how much things have changed since 1995 when he wrote the article. He speaks of an Internet culture that prizes individuality and decentralization, of an "empowering, self-defending, self-regulating cooperative community." I am not sure that this is true of today's Internet. Since 1995 the Internet has become much more commercial, and there has been a much more extensive state effort to regulate. As well, the scale of some problems have changed, so that I am not sure that spam through Usenet groups is the same as spam through email, and therefore I am not sure if cooperative, self-regulatory mechanisms will work. However, I still take Wisebrod's point that many regulatory initiatives are likely to be ineffective as well. For myself, between the filtering tools the University uses and the rigid filtering that I do on my own email, I manage to live with the problem. That provides an individual solution, but it does not deal with the systemic problem that a very significant portion of Internet bandwitdth is filled with junk. That imposes costs that may mandate a more comprhensive regulatory response.