European Union Claims of Jurisdiction over the Internet: An Analysis of Three Recent Key Developments

The topic of Internet jurisdiction is gaining a considerable amount of attention at the moment. Yet, we are seemingly still a long way from solutions. This article builds on the notion that we are presently in an era of jurisdictional “hyper-regulation” characterised by complexity and a real risk of Internet users being exposed to laws in relation to which they have no realistic means of ensuring compliance. Drawing upon a framework consisting of three jurisdictional core principles, the article seeks to examine whether three recent key developments in EU law contribute to hyper-regulation. Those three developments are: (1) Article 3 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which outlines the Regulations “territorial scope”; (2) The combined effect of the proposed e-evidence Directive and the proposed e-evidence Regulation; and (3) the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision in Bolagsupplysningen OÜ. The article also provides an analysis of recent trends and draws some conclusions as to how we may best move forward in this field.