Technoregulatory coherence in Information technology regulation over the years

This chapter explores the concept of technoregulatory coherence in the context of IT regulation. Cooper & Lodder discuss the interplay between the innovation of technology and the attempts of governments to regulate it, primarily the internet. They introduced a concept Cooper labeled as technoregulatory coherence: “the law faces profound challenges as technologies develop in direct response to its own governance mechanisms, seeking to create their own privatised architectures which may be in opposition to or simply incompatible with the law.” By coherence they do not refer to the field of technology law as such or the coherence of law and legal reasoning in information technology law . Rather, their point is that the lack of coherence between the law and technology may lead to the undesired outcome that emerges when various incoherent architectures coexist, seemingly oblivious to each other, each crafting its own regulatory narrative simultaneously.
In this chapter we expound upon governmental efforts spanning the past six decades to regulate information technology, with a particular emphasis on the last two decades, specifically addressing the internet. This ranges from doing nothing at all (spontaneous ordering), encouraging the market to regulate itself, to regulation. Our analysis of information technology law is framed against the backdrop of technoregulatory coherence.
We distinguish three periods. We discuss a first period starting with the early years of information technology law (1960-1970) until the 1990s. This long period can be characterized as mainly discussing possible legislative initiatives and less so the actual introduction of new law. In the 1980s we focus on the Netherlands and their endeavors, which were comparable to those of most countries in that decade, aimed at imparting significance to emerging technologies. In the next decade the obvious technological challenge for governments became the internet. Again, we focus on the Netherlands, because their initiatives reflect the global approach in this era. Given the importance of the internet, the second period (2000-2015) we focus on internet phenomena that have in common that they have no direct counterpart in the physical world. The first phenomenon is spam, the sending of bulk e-mail, profiting from the internet protocol allowing to send messages to millions of people at practically zero costs. Second, we address grooming, where the anonymity of the internet allows people to trick minors into meeting with adults. Third, blockchain is discussed as the seemingly uncontrollable internet application. We conclude our overview with the present (2015-present) abundance of laws and the consequences this has for technoregulatory coherence.