Jurisdiction is the biggest problem facing the Web. It's at the core of nearly every cybercrime-related story I've covered in the past three years. Where does one border end and another begin? Is this a job for local government, state law enforcement, federal legislators, or international regulators? It's rarely clear. As a result, everyone legislates, and we end up with dozens of laws, some that work, many that conflict, and more and more that turn out to be unconstitutional. 

The legislation of spam is a perfect example. This one seems pretty straightforward. Spam is a problem, and like the telemarketers who came before them, spammers need to be regulated. Ideally, there would be worldwide regulation of commercial email. International lawmakers would write a spam law, and if you violated that law, you'd be hauled into the world court to plead your case. 

There is no world government, of course. So, instead, legislators at various levels write laws to regulate spam. Someone receives spam in California, so California legislators write a law. That spam was sent from Washington state, so Washington state legislators write a law. The spam also crossed interstate lines, so Congress tries to write a half-dozen laws. Each law is meant to cover the same act, each law is written very similarly, and the agency enforcing each law attempts to exercise jurisdiction in order to protect its citizenry. 

I appreciate these laws. I appreciate that every level of government has given up on waiting for the other level of government to take action and, instead, has created a law of its own intended to protect me from commercial email. It takes a remarkable amount of time, money, and energy to pass a law, and I appreciate these efforts to can spam. What's frustrating to me is seeing each of those laws struck down the very first time they're tested. 

California's spam law was recently shot down. The court concluded that the law placed "undue burden" on interstate commerce. In other words, there is no such thing as "California" spam, and as such, it's not California's place to regulate it. With email accounts available from companies such as Yahoo! and Hotmail, you can send and receive email from anywhere. A law specific to California just doesn't work. 

Enough already. How abstract are we going to get? We've got to make some decisions, and frankly there are only a few options. Either we choose to regulate spam in the place from which it was sent, or we regulate it in the place it is received. Pick one. 

If I had to choose, I'd pick the latter option. If you're a resident in New Jersey, even if you do occasionally access your email from various computers around the world, you're entitled to the protections offered by your New Jersey legislators.