Book Review: Chokepoints: Global private regulation on the Internet

• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Author: Abhijeet Kumar
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567717736565
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Tusikov, N. (2016).

Chokepoints: Global private regulation on the Internet. Oakland: University of California Press. xvii, 295 pp. $85,

ISBN 978-0-520-29122-5.

Reviewed by: Abhijeet Kumar, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mumbai, India

DOI: 10.1177/1057567717736565

Every modern civilized society functions on the concept of nation-state for formation of rules and

regulations with the responsibility of maintaining order. The state creates restric tions in public

interest and protects the rights of individuals. On the contrary, the general global perspective with

regard to outreach of the World Wide Web suggests that there exists a state of nature with no one to

rule the kingdom and no rule to govern the subjects. However, this bubble is burst by Natasha

Tusikov in her book Chokepoints: Global Private Regulators on the Internet.

With the rapidly increased penetration of the Internet throughout the globe, it became necessary

for the state to keep the platform safe, secured, and well within the ambit of law. During 1970–1980,

intellectual property (IP) got recognized as a milking cow for revenue generation, and the world

witnessed a shift in paradigm of IP jurisprudence, with debates leading to introduction of the World

Trade Organization and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property. This also established the IP

holders’ influence and control over the state.

While the book has been divided into seven chapters by the author, it can be said to have been

written in three parts, purely based on its content: legislative failures and inception of nonbinding

agreements (NBAs), enforcement of NBAs creating chokepoints, and analysis of the situation and

suggestions offered by the author.

The author introduces the readers to the failed attempt by the U.S. governme nt in passing

legislations for expanding the scope of online regulation and policing, from monitoring crim-

inal activities to curbing violations related to IP infringements, specifically piracy and counter-

feiting. The author also mentions the efforts of the UK government and the EU Council, in

doing the same in their respective jurisdiction. Upon failure, the government, lobbied by giant

unions of IP holders, turned toward the firms which dominate market over the Internet. The

author refers to these firms as macrointermediaries/intermediaries and mentions them as leaders

in different types of service providers over the Internet, namely, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and so

on, as Search and Ads intermediaries; PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and so on, as payment inter-

mediaries; GoDaddy as domain registration intermediaries; eBay, Taobao, Amazon, and so on,

as marketplace intermediaries. The NBAs signed between them with the IP holders dictating

the terms from the other side, for establishing the rules of best practices would be followed by

these intermediaries, makes them highly relevant in this debate. The extensive control of

intermediaries on the access, as well as usage, of their services put them in an advantageous

position to create chokepoints for the websites/users involved in these infringements. The

author regards this as the birth of private regulators for securing the economic interest of IP

International CriminalJustice Review

2019, Vol. 29(1) 90-97

ª2017 Georgia State University

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