The relevance of internet architecture to law: the liability of internet service providers for harmful user generated content

In recent years, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have increasingly been required by government to filter or block harmful user-generated Internet content. The present article considers whether such regulation violates the rationale underlying the Internet’s architecture and its end-to-end design principle. The ‘end-to-end design principle’ stipulates that ISPs should be limited to ‘passing packets of data’ and should be agnostic about the content of the data they carry over their networks. The objective of this article is to consider how an understanding of the Internet’s architecture can inform decisions as to the appropriate liability that should be imposed on ISPs for harmful user-generated content. The paper analyses the growth in regulatory initiatives which are directed at the core of the network and argues that such regulation is inconsistent with the Internet’s network design principles. It further suggests that such regulation can generate collateral damage to online freedom of expression and recommends that regulation be directed at the application layer to uphold the end-to-end design basis of the Internet.