Giga Law up close

Technology has advanced to such an extent that it bewilders the observer, like it has never done before. It is limited only by man’s genius and imagination. John F. Kennedy said that "Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all." And that was more than four decades ago.

It has come to a point today where technology advance is so rapid and astounding that any innovation becomes indistinguishable from magic. How else to explain what indeed prevails today where, by the mere click of one’s finger, countless words can be transmitted halfway around the world in a matter of seconds.

But the human species with its drives and conflicts is a constant. A Cro-Magnon man of 40,000 years ago, were he dressed in blue jeans and T-shirt, would not look out of place today. We are born into history. Our cerebral capacity to plan our own personal futures exists, however, independently of history. It is the person who determines whether he or she will be an extraordinary person and a good leader.

I remember a line from a speech that was delivered in Geneva sometime in 1996: "One machine can do the work of many ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." Thanks to television and computers, we have become savvy in ways past generations never experienced. I remember how my late father had so hoped that he would still be around when the first man landed on the moon. Well, he was, and he would have enjoyed it even more had this unfolded before his very eyes through the click of the mouse his fingers are wrapped around.

But our generational savviness in the age of imagery and giga-bytes is a matter more of imagery than the heft of real things, of the passion within us for the things that have true value – to see our country survive, for one.

The Internet may indeed be such a modern marvel but it has produced an unprecedented number of conflicts which the world telecommunity has to set in order. In one area alone, the Internet has provided critics and the aggrieved with the world’s largest soapbox, by paving the way for anyone with the barest of technical skills to create a website for the entire world to see, and a huge forum where every critical observation and grievance, damaging or harmless, can be expressed.

And this is where Giga Law comes in. A giga-byte is a unit of computer storage capacity approximately equal to one billion bytes, and a byte is a group of eight bits that a computer processes as a unit. A state judge in the United States, in one recent ruling, was reported to have borrowed the word "giga" and connected it to the adjudication he was enunciating. The term "Giga Law" was thus born as a new field of law.

The phenomenon that is the Internet has created an unprecedented way for disgruntled customers to target entrepreneurs/businessmen they believe have wronged them or who indulge in schemes and marketing practices they disagree with. In the not-too-distant past, these customers did not enjoy this kind of widespread dissemination of their grievances. They would pass around papers/leaflets which reached only a limited audience, which is tiring and time-consuming. Getting media’s attention was also a strain. But now that this worldwide soapbox is in fact here, the world is their audience. Especially in advanced countries where computers abound.

In recent years, the number of websites has grown with the growth of the Internet generally, and of course, the number of lawsuits over these critical websites. The authors of these websites are now known in the US as "cybergripers." An entity that is targeted by these online critics or cybergripers may want to take judicial action to silence their online tirades and attacks.

One example is the suit brought by Starbucks against a San Francisco cartoonist who created a website with a logo that had the words "Consumer’s Whore" instead of "Starbucks Coffee." During the 2000 presidential elections, a complaint was filed with the FEC (Federal Election Commission) against the operators of a site gwbush.com, which displayed cartoons of US President George W. Bush with cocaine on his face. The US constitution’s First Amendment usually gives sufficient protection of free speech and expression, also enshrined in our constitution.

Closely related to this issue is the privacy issue within the context of an extremely public Internet. Predictably, a lot of people especially in the US, complain that websites’ privacy policies are difficult to understand because they’re not only unclear but are verbose with legalese. I was informed by a former colleague in the world telecommunity of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and who gave me some documents on this, that the World Wide Web Commission (W3C) developed what is now called the Platform for Privacy Reference, known commonly as P3P, which is a technological approach to interpret and apply privacy policies.

Quoting from the W3C, "At its most basic level, P3P is a standardized set of multiple-choice questions covering all the major aspects of a website’s privacy policies. Taken together, they present a clear snapshot of how a site handles personal information about its users. P3P-enabled websites make this information available in a standard, machine-readable format. P3P-enabled browsers can "read" this snapshot automatically and compare it to the consumer’s own set of privacy preferences. P3P enhances user control by putting privacy policies where users can find them, in a form users can understand, and, more importantly, enables users to act on what they see."

But the optional platform still prevails. Any website may choose to implement P3P, and no law requires any site to do so. Theoretically, P3P should help consumers protect their privacy online. In practice the W3C has not yet been able to make the impact of its use attractive to consumers. By early 2002, six of the top 10 websites in the world had adopted P3P, and it was under consideration by the other four.

When Microsoft adopted P3P, a couple of lawyers, after an analysis, submitted a number of deterrents to its full implementation: it is costly to implement and maintain; it is confusing to the consumer; it still lacks enforcement and security, and could create unclear legal consequences such as if the P3P technology cannot accurately convey a legal distinction in a site’s privacy policy.

One thing is clear – the technology has not yet been widely implemented from a world standpoint, especially in the Philippines where it is nil, and it is not certain whether the consumers really understand it.

Giga Law should cover the W3C recommendations to provide world order. In the meantime, consumers and businesses should not ignore it. For that matter, because of the implications of P3P on the worldwide soapbox we have right now, each jurisdiction in the world community of nations should hasten and strengthen the evolution and development of their respective giga legislations. And there are innumerable other issues that should be addressed especially on patents and trademarks.

At this point in the life of the universe where mind-boggling scientific innovations are developed so fast, the words of that wise old man, Alfonse "the wise" of Castille, who lived in the 13th century, comes to mind: "Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."

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