[sp332]

In the future, moreover, the reach of national law will increase. The Hague Conference on Private International Law is developing an international treaty explicitly intended to make outfits like Swaptor more vulnerable to legal pressure-“a bold set of rules that will profoundly change the Internet,” in the phrase of James Love, director of the activist Consumer Project on Technology. (The draft treaty will be discussed at a diplomatic meeting next year.) By making it possible to apply the laws of any one country to any Internet site available in that country, the draft treaty will, Love warns, “lead to a great reduction in freedom, shrink the public domain, and diminish national sovereignty.”

How did this treaty attempt turn out?