Judicial Exercise of Personal Jurisdiction in the Online Fora: The Gordian Knott Unravelled – Ibrahim Ismail Muhammed

From across the ocean a drummer in the clouds beats his drums and its melody reaches the shores of a distant land that forbids music, melody and sounds. On what basis can the drummer’s action in the clouds be challenged by the foreign land? This is the analogy that explains best the war raging over who can exercise jurisdiction over activities in the clouds and a borderless internet as seen in a plethora of cases such as Yahoo! v. LICRA & UEJF. This war reached a crescendo in Google v. Equustek, where a worldwide civil injunction granted on Google by a regional court was affirmed. This paper seeks to explain, analyze and criticize the basis for the exercise of jurisdiction over online based activities by courts.
Click here for more.