The course of building the legal system for the Internet in China
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II. The current situation of the development of the studies of Internet law
In China, the study of computer-network law began in the late 1980s. Since the publication of "The Legal Protection of Computers, Software and Data" in 1987 by Zheng Chengsi, which is China's first book in the field, computer-network law has begun to enter the view of scholars. With the deepening of the research into issues of the Internet law and the increase of the number of scholars entering the field, Internet law has become a prominent subject of study in the country. So far Chinese scholars have published more than 9,000 treatises (including journal articles, master and doctoral dissertations and conference papers) and more than 100 books on Internet law. A scientific framework with Chinese characteristics for the study of Internet law is basically in place. With the deepening of the study, academic groups and professional research institutions were set up one after another: institutes specializing in Internet law were established at Guangxi, Peking, Beijing Normal and other universities; and in 2009, the Internet Governance and Law Research Center, the first of its kind in China, was established at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT). Speaking of the building of the subject of Internet law in 2010, the BUPT created China's first cross-discipline subject on Internet governance covering Internet law, Internet governance, information security and management sciences.
When reviewing the progresses, we also must soberly understand the weak points. Despite the continuous emergence of research results in Internet law, high-quality, original and theoretical academic works are few and in particular, books are rarely seen on systematic and in-depth research into Internet law. Due to the lack of study and vague understanding of the cyber society and ensuing new personal relationships, controversies still exist on issues of cyber privacy, the right of reputation, personal information, virtual asset protection, because they involve new patterns and relationships of cyber society. Furthermore, China lacks a unified and complete research system model in its study of Internet law, and it has yet to produce a practical investigative research report, such as the Baker or Rockefeller reports in the US, to exert great influence on the management of national Internet information resources. Therefore, in the future, research in Internet law should pay close attention to the practice in China, and thorough investigations should be done and more pertinent and instructive investigation reports be produced to raise the level of development of a legal system for the Internet in China.
III. Challenges met by the building of a legal system for the Internet
With technological revolutions, profound-level applications of the Internet in production as well as people's lives, and endless abuses of the Internet and cyber crimes, the building of a legal system for the Internet has met unprecedented challenges:
1. The issue of cyber security
The security of information in cyberspace is an important component of national security. Abuses of the Internet, which include cyber fraud, spam, hacking, invasion of privacy and cyber terrorism, have increasingly and continuously emerged and developed to seriously affect the security of the politics, economy, military affairs and the culture of various countries. They also have posed an unprecedented threat to personal safety. The characteristic of the Internet being international has determined that no single country can solve the issue of cyber security on its own and hence it has become imminent to make globally consistent rules and act in a coordinated way against emergent cyber threats and attacks.
2. Issues caused by applications of new Internet technology and innovations
The emergence of cloud computing, mobile Internet, convergence of various networks and the Internet of objects have brought the development of the Internet to a new phrase, which will significantly affect our work and lives and at the same time raise the requirements for protecting personal information and safeguarding national security. The emergence of new Internet services, which include blogs, microblogging and SNS, the growing maturity and extensive application of mobile telecommunications technology, and the shift from text to multimedia, such as audio, video and photos as the main agent in information communication on the Internet have together made supervision more difficult and at the same time, made the legal relationships among various parties more complex, which indicates the crying need to legally clarify the scopes of individual rights and obligations as well as the boundary between personal safety and national security.
IV. An outlook for the building of a legal system for the Internet in China
1. An outlook for legislation of the Internet
It can be predicted that China will accelerate to make its information security law, personal information protection law, and e-government law to define the basic rights (power), obligations and responsibilities of various parties in cyber society. Meanwhile, China will further improve Internet transaction-related legislations to promote the development of global e-commerce and safeguard the interests of various parties according to the law. Furthermore, it's urgent for the international community to make a global treaty against cyber crimes, and China will be happy to take part in this issue to safeguard cyber security with other countries.
2. An outlook for the research of Internet law
The research of Internet law must serve the country's legislation of Internet law, and the protection of public rights and the demand in international governance of the Internet. For this end, in the future the following issues need to be solved in the studies of Internet law in China:
(1) Paying attention to major issues that need to be resolved in the building the legal system for the Internet in China
The science of law is in essence a study of practice. Therefore, the study of Internet law should focus on the hot, difficult and central issues in the course of the rule of law of the Internet in China, systematically and profoundly look into major issues that need to be resolved urgently, including cyber security, the protection of personal information, e-government, deep-level utilization of the Internet, e-payment and the protection of online intellectual property rights to provide enough theoretical support for the country's legislation of Internet law in the future.
(2) Emphasizing exchanges and dialogues with other disciplines
The complexity of cyber societal issues have made Internet-related legal issues complex and diversified. Therefore, the study of Internet law needs to conduct exchanges and dialogues with other legal disciplines, which include the studies of constitutional law, civil law, criminal law, administrative law and procedural law. Moreover, the rules supporting cyber society include not only legal ones but also technical ones and ethics and morals. Accordingly, the study of Internet law needs to conduct exchanges and cooperation with disciplines such as economics, political science, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Only by doing this can we better understand the inherent laws of the development of the Internet, enhance the robustness of it and solve problems of cyber society by means of cyberspace itself.
(3) Actively carrying out international academic exchanges
The characteristic of the Internet being international has caused many Internet-related issues to bear international characteristics. In this sense, the goal of building a legal system for the Internet not only includes the realization of the rule of law of the Internet in a specific country, but also the global rule of Internet law. Therefore, governments and research institutions of various countries should actively carry out dialogues and cooperation for the realization of this goal. As to this, Chinese institutes, such as the Internet Governance and Law Research Center of BUPT, would like to cooperate with American institutes on the study of issues of cyber crime and the protection of digital intellectual property rights, in particular, protection of online intellectual property rights, personal information, mitigation of online terrorism, pornography and violence and the promotion of online trade. We can jointly study and discuss strategies and measures for safeguarding online security and basic individual rights, promoting the development of online trade and ensuring fair distribution of international online resources as well as against hacking to provide theoretical support for the international community to agree on common Internet governance measures and to jointly promote the development and prosperity of the Internet in the world.
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