IN THE race to exploit the internet, it seems that there is no finishing line. We are assailed daily by news of breakthroughs in bandwidth and portability, and of novel services and resources. But is anyone taking stock of the societal and economic implications — of issues such as governance of the internet, the potential of e-democracy, and the impact of emerging technologies on markets? Reassuringly, these topics are the business of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), established in 2001 (www.oii.ox.ac.uk).

A recent seminar highlighted several lines of OII research that are relevant for lawyers. The first is trust. Despite the wide take-up of the internet, many users, including lawyers and judges, are not confident that online services are reliable and they worry about privacy, security and identity. The OII is working on solutions. Interestingly, it has found that formally educated people are more concerned about the integrity of the people and information accessible on the internet than the other risks; and that non-users are more sceptical than users.

THE OII is also illuminating about what it calls digital choice. It acknowledges the digital divide, that some categories of people, especially the less well-off and the physically remote, are effectively excluded from the online world. But the institute’s research also suggests that there is a significant, further group of offliners. Some folk, neither poor nor inaccessible, simply choose to stay away. In this group, lamentably, are many solicitors — only half of England’s sole practitioners are thought to have internet access. For lawyers who find searching the web to be an unedifying experience, the OII says that help will soon be to hand. We will have our own personal, electronic assistants, known as companions. These will interact with tomorrow’s internet on our behalf. A cross between a Tamagotchi (www.tamagotchi.com) and a d=E6mon (from Philip Pullman’s wonderful trilogy, His Dark Materials), a companion will know our likes and dislikes, protect us from information overload, represent our online interests, chat to us and search for us.

OII RESEARCH extends to the subject of internet humour. Its focus is not the tiresomely unfunny e-mails that arrive frequently in our in-boxes. Instead, it is looking at multimedia, interactive cyber-humour, where the user plays a part in the online laugh (a remarkable proportion of these have the American president as their butt). Through studying cyber-humour, the OII intends to learn more about online culture and to determine whether cyber-wit is subversive or hegemonic. Legal jokes are not being investigated specifically, although this would be a rich vein to mine. (The trouble with legal jokes, of course, is that some become partners.) One leaves the OII with the sense that the ultimate impact of the internet will have less to do with technology than with the behaviour of its users — fickle human beings, who fall into two groups: the internet dystopians, who rarely peek over their half-empty glasses to consider the benefits, and the internet Utopians, whose vision is blurred by the wonder of it all. Sanity and prosperity lie somewhere between.

The author lectures and consults internationally. He is a member of the advisory board of the Oxford Internet Institute and can be contacted through www.susskind.com

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