Jurisdiction is the concept whereby in any legal system, the power to hear or determine a case is vested in an

appropriate court. The courts are structured as civil and criminal on the basis of jurisdiction territory and
monetary parameters.

Within a country the legal system operates through the process of jurisdiction, which can be classified as
1)Pecuniary Jurisdiction- denotes the monetary limits involved in the disputes. Here the jurisdiction operates on
a set of monetary limits of the value of dispute and accordingly courts have to be approached
2)Subject matter jurisdiction- specifies the nature of jurisdiction based on the types of disputes involved.eg A
company windinu up procedure can be delt only in HC and not in a district court
3)Territiory matter jurisdiction: involves the geographical charater where the disputes can be brought before a
particular type of court
Territorial jurisdiction poses the most problems in case of cyber jurispudence

One of the advantages of the Internet over other methods of communication and commerce is that it enables
access to a much wider, even a worldwide, audience. Spatial distance and national borders are irrelevant to the
creation of an Internet business, many of which are conceived for the express purpose of expanding sales
horizons across borders. In a sense, a person can be everywhere in the world, all at once. This ease of
communication raises a vital legal question, however: when a person puts up a website on his home server and
allows access to it from all points on the globe, does he subject himself to the governance of every law- and
rule-maker in the world? Under the current system, in order to decide what state's or nation's laws govern
disputes that arise over Internet issues, a court first must decide "where" Internet conduct takes place, and what
it means for Internet activity to have an "effect" within a state or nation.
Conflicts of law are particularly likely to arise in cyberspace, where the location of an occurrence is never
certain, where ideological differences are likely to create conflicting laws, and where rules are made not only by
nations and their representatives, but also by sub-national and transnational institutions.
1)The test currently in force
There is little dispute that nation-states can prosecute Internet users (or anyone else, for that matter), whatever
their location, for revealing national secrets, falsifying official documents, or inciting war. These activities
threaten national security, wherever they are committed, and therefore fall under international standards for
jurisdiction. Similarly, it is a universal crime to publicly incite torture or genocide. These universal offenses
may be prosecuted extraterritorially by any nation, regardless of the citizenship or location of the user.
Every nation has an obligation to exercise moderation and restraint in invoking jurisdiction over cases that have
a foreign element, and they should avoid undue encroachment on the jurisdiction of other States. Although
countries are given great discretion in deciding whether to exercise jurisdiction over conduct in other countries,
international law dictates that a country exercising its jurisdiction in an overly self-centered way not only
contravenes international law, but can also "disturb the international order and produce political, legal, and
economic reprisals."

Legal scholar Brainerd Currie espoused the "interest" approach, which encouraged courts to look to the history
of the applicable laws and, if the laws of one state could be applied without impairing the other state's interests,
those laws were to apply. In the case of a true conflict, in which one state's interests would always be impaired
professor Robert Leflar has devised a test in which courts consider 1) predictability of result, (2) maintenance
of interstate and international order, (3) simplification of the judicial task, (4) advancement of the forum s
governmental interests, and (5) application of the better rule of law.

2) Case law: Dow Jones vs Gutnick

The Respondent, an Australian businessman, brought libel proceedings in Australia over an article published by
the Appellants in Barrons, a weekly financial magazine, which had alleged that he was the biggest
customer of a convicted money launderer. Importantly, the article also appeared on the Appellants website.
The Respondent brought his action in the state court of Victoria. The Appellant had online subscribers in
Victoria, but argued that the case should be heard where the article was uploaded, in New Jersey.
Issue
(1) Where publication of an article on the internet takes place.
(2) Whether the Victoria court was an appropriate forum for determination of the action.

Held
(1) Rejecting the single publication doctrine favoured in the US and put forward by the Appellants,
publication on the internet takes place wherever the information is downloaded. (2) As the Respondent was
claiming only for the damage to his reputation within the state of Victoria, there was no question of Victoria
being an inappropriate forum for determination of the action.
Jurisdiction Issue
Dow Jones' first argument was based on its assertion that Victoria had no jurisdiction to entertain the proceeding
because the internet publication occurred when and where the material was uploaded, that is, when it was pulled
from the server in New Jersey by a request emanating from a Victorian web browser. However, Justice Hedigan
held, consistent with the traditional law of defamation, that publication takes place where and when the contents
of the publication are seen and comprehended, that is the publication occurred at the place of downloading.
It was also argued by the defendant that the world wide web was a system unlike any other and therefore defied
traditional analysis. Justice Hedigan held that the law must nevertheless cope with it and that in any case the
article was not a 'world wide web publication' but an 'internet publication' since access to the publication was
limited by the imposition of passwords and charges.[2]
Counsel for Dow Jones briefly dabbled with the proposition that cyberspace was a defamation-free zone, but the
argument was not explored. [3]