worked. The new users, of course, thought the old users rude, unwel-
coming, and unrealistic to think that their idiosyncratic culture
would last forever. Of course, the influx of new AOL users in 1993
was a mere trickle compared to what came later, but it represented the
first major clash to result from a large group of the general public
crashing what had been a private Internet party.
The influx of new users into the formerly insolated Internet cul-
ture has re-created many of the same tensions that plagued interac-
tions on the Old West frontier between newcomers and old-timers.
The changes created by the Internet culture clash have been obvious in
some ways. There has been a massive crackdown on gambling and
prostitution online, just as there was at the close of the frontier in the
Old West. In 2006, the FBI arrested the owner of a major online gam-
bling site.
16
Digital natives lamented the move as the beginning of the
end of the wild Internet. Later that year, Congress passed and the
President signed a bill outlawing all monetary transactions with online
casinos, effectively making it impossible for U.S. residents to get
money into or out of an online casino.
17
Similarly, the online classified
site Craigslist removed many of its prostitution advertisements after
being investigated by forty state attorneys general,
18
and law enforce-
ment officers started to create fake online prostitution ads as part of
a sting operation against johns.
19
Extensive investigations took some
malicious websites offline, including the complete shutdown of one
server farm that was a haven for spammers and criminals.
20
But law enforcement online has not yet caught up with offline
enforcement, and it may never. Thousands of spammers and malicious
websites are still online. International scammers and fraudsters still
work with impunity. Vigilante justice remains the only form of justice
against many fraudsters; for example, an extensive community of
Internet users has sprung up with the goal of playing tricks on “419”
fraudsters, often by encouraging the fraudster to take embarrassing
photos of himself or by convincing the fraudster to go on a long trip
to collect (nonexistent) wire transfer payments from the would-be
victim.
21
One can argue until blue in the face about whether this
Wild West 2.040
digital vigilantism (“digilantism,” if you will) is good or bad, but there’s
no doubt that it happens frequently.
Long-time Internet users continue to preach self-reliance and
technical measures to make the Internet more useable. To take just
one example, the well-known Internet developer Paul Graham (re-
sponsible for many of the online shopping cart innovations that have
become standard practice online) thinks that pure technology is bet-
ter than law at stopping unsolicited commercial e-mail (“spam”). He
elaborated on this theme in his classic book Hackers and Painters.
22
To him, it is only natural that the solution for an online problem is
a technological solution designed to detect key phrases that appear in
spam messages and to delete the offending messages. In contrast,
many people more familiar with offline legal systems suggest impos-
ing new laws and controls on the Internet. One leading example is
technology lawyer David Baumer, who believes that legal solutions
based on the federal CAN-SPAM law and similar state laws that
give private citizens an incentive to sue spammers are “within
sight.”
23
To him, it is only natural that the solution for an online
problem is a legal regime. Somewhere in between, leading Internet
scholar Jonathan Zittrain suggests that the answer to problems like
spam might be a mix of tech no logical and social solutions, such as co-
operation between Internet Service Providers and users to identify
and block websites that send spam.
24
The result is a continuing conflict between self-defense and law
enforcement, between open and closed borders, and between order
and chaos. It is the same debate that raged in the Old West. And it is
not clear that either side is entirely “right” or “better.” There are funda-
mental technological limitations in the Internet that mean that it may
never be as safe and secure as the offline world, or at least not in the
same ways. But there is no reason for it to be a complete free range for
fraud, scams, attacks, smears, impersonation, and libel. Too many peo-
ple are using the Internet these days to continue a world of vigilante
justice and aggressive self-defense. But much of the growth of the In-
ternet was spurred by its wide-open nature, free from government in-
The Internet Is the New Wild West 41
terference or rules of any sort. It is inevitable that some balance will be
struck between these positions, but it is not yet certain what balance
that will be. And, as Internet scholar Lawrence Lessig wisely points
out, the final balance might depend a lot on whether the old policy of
Internet self-governance is able to avert a massive catastrophe or
whether serious government regulation of the Internet starts from the
perspective of recovering from a digital terrorist attack.
The Internet is still fundamentally a frontier environment. But it
is not the frontier of the early pioneers anymore. Just as the end of the
gold rush was not the end of the story for the Old West, the end of the
first stage of the Internet’s development is not the end of its story.
Those who understand the battle over the future of the Internet will
be well positioned to preserve their own reputation along the way.
Notes
1. From George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of
The Life of Reason. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/301.
2. For a more detailed history of the Internet, check out the free online
bonus chapter detailing the history of the Internet, exclusively available at
http://www.WildWest2.com/bonus/history/.
3. “Remembering Netscape: The Birth of The Web,” Fortune, July 25, 2005.
Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/302.
4. “Further Fallout from Last Week’s Nutty Netscape IPO,” Fortune, Septem-
ber 4, 1995. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/303.
5. “It’s the IPO, Stupid,” Vanity Fair, January 2000. Go: http://wildwest2.com/
go/314.
6. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/304.
7. Gary Rivlin, “If You Can Make It in Silicon Valley, You Can Make It . . .
in Silicon Valley Again,” New York Times (magazine), June 5, 2005. Go:
http://wildwest2.com/go/316.
8. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/305.
9. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/306.
Wild West 2.042
10. Brad Templeton, “Reactions to the DEC Spam of 1978.” Go: http://
wildwest2.com/go/307.
11. Mark Crispin, in Brad Templeton, “Reactions to the DEC Spam of 1978.”
Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/308.
12. Bruce Lambert, “As Prostitutes Turn to Craigslist, Law Takes Notice,” New
Yo r k Ti m e s , September 5, 2007. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/309.
13. Mike Brunker, “Online poker cheating blamed on employee,” MSNBC.com,
October 19, 2007. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/310. Also visit a site dedi-
cated to recounting the scam. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/311.
14. The Internet Encyclopedia, Hossein Bidgoli (ed.), 2004, at 14.
15. WARNING: The following link contains samples of the images used in
the attack and may trigger a response in readers with photo-sensitive
epilepsy: Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/312. Also see a news report at
Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/313.
16. Simon Bowers, “Online Betting Boss Faces Conspiracy Charges in U.S.,”
The Guardian (UK), July 18, 2006. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/314.
17. Associated Press, “Bush Signs Port-Security, Internet Gambling Bill,” USA
To d a y , October 13, 2006. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/315.
18. Associated Press, “Craigslist to Crack Down on Prostitution Ads,”
KDKA.com, November 6, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/316. Also
see Craigslist’s response, at Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/317.
19. Hector Castro, “Ad on Craigslist Really a Sex Sting,” Seattle Post-
Intelligencer, November 16, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2/com/go/318.
20. Jeremy Kirk, “After McColo Takedown, Spam Surges Again,” Network
Wo rl d, January 26, 2009. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/319.
21. The website is at 419eater.com.
22. Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters (Santa Rosa, Calif.: O’Reilly Media,
2004). Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/320.
23. David Baumer, “SPAM: Are Legal Solutions Within Sight?” Working paper
(2006). Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/321.
24. Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008). Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/322.
The Internet Is the New Wild West 43
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