Online Intermediary Liability:Seeking A Proper Regulatory Approach

This thesis introduces a modest proposal to adopt an appropriate approach to regulate the online intermediary liability for the privacy-related damages.The current paper is a research of the newly developed approaches to online intermediary liability that has been taken by courts in the United States of America,the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the People' s Republic of China.This paper primarily addresses the liability that online intermediaries face with regard to speech-based torts,precisely invasion of privacy and damaging the reputation.It discusses how the courts in three jurisdictions namely the United States of America,the United Kingdom of Great Britain and China have adopted different approaches to regulate online intermediary liability for the harmful content of third parties.It closely studies the newly developed approaches of each of them and identifies drawbacks in the approaches adopted by the courts,as being either strict approach by imposing on them a monitoring duty,loose approach by giving them immense freedom or the moderate approach by containing both measures.Analyzing some recent cases,this paper seeks to discover a preferable approach to regulate online intermediary liability for the privacy-related damages.The study analyzes the potential of presenting a proper approach to online intermediary liability,which encourages the technological innovations and supports the privacy law goals.This work further investigates and discusses the prospects of a responsive approach to be the proper one by discussing its benefits and argues against the possible arguments that might be unfavourable to a regulatory responsive approach.