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There is little doubt that the explosive growth of the cyberspace has provided a wealth of opportunities for a broad range of legal and illegal enterprises. One of the characteristics of the cyberspace is that it removes many barriers (e.g. geographical, accessing potential customers, cost of entry) from the path of savvy entrepreneurs. As such, a new particular brand of entrepreneurs has been born – these are entrepreneurs working at the limits of legality or plainly outside any legal frameworks. The purpose of this work is to explore the area of illegal cyber-entrepreneurship and to illustrate some of the factors that have contributed to its explosive growth over the last two decades.

The work is utilising case studies drawn from literature and news sources to illustrate the theoretical concepts that are being explored. The literature consulted in this work supports the discussion around the areas of entrepreneurship, cyberspace and various aspects related to illegal exploitation of the cyberspace.

The positioning of illegal enterprises within existing theoretical frameworks is explored and a modelling of the characteristics of such enterprises is being proposed. The duality of the opportunities available within the cyberspace is illustrated, with an emphasis on the fact that there will always be a ‘gap’ between the opportunities offered by the cyberspace and the possible illegal nature of some of the entrepreneurial activities that are taking place in this space.

This work explores and positions the illegal entrepreneurial activities taking place in the cyberspace. This contributes to the advancement of knowledge in this area. Given the fast moving nature of this area, there are opportunities for updating this work on a regular basis.

This paper examines virtual organizations, operating in global cyberspace. This paper uses Armstrong’s (2005) conceptual orientation that mythmaking is fundamental to humanity and Warner's (1994) Neo-Barthesian (Barthes, 1957) methodology of distinguishing between “monster myths” which conceal political motives and secretly circulate ideological positions and her contrasting notion of “educative” myths which are not always delusions but are vigorous ways of leading one to "make sense of universal matters" (Warner, 1994, p. xiii) to recover the purposeful illusions behind the beguiling spells cast by the “modern myths” of virtual organizations. This paper finds that virtual organizations are impractical organizations involving a visible myth that masks the invisible purposes of the hegemonic (Torfing, 1999) control narratives of elites and global corporate capital.

This paper aims to review the current debates regarding the role of the state in securing the cyberspace, with a particular focus on the negotiations taking place in the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

This paper reflects on the evolution of the UNGA discourse on the role of the state in protecting the cyberspace, based on the textual analysis of all UNGA resolutions pertaining to the politico-military aspects of internet security.

The paper finds that the lack of an officially adopted definition for internet security in the UNGA discussions led to agreement solely on informative, best practice sharing or voluntary activities addressing other states, rather than providing an integrated vision for protecting the cyberspace.

The analysis is limited to the negotiations taking place in one institutional venue, namely the UNGA between 1998 and 2011, complemented by three resolutions issued by the ITU in 2010; activities conducted in other institutional venues might influence or determine the overall discourse noted in the resolutions under investigation here.

This represents the most comprehensive account of the discourse on the role of the state in securing the cyberspace as presented in the UNGA and ITU resolutions and its evolution over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of jurisdictional conflict on the internationalization of firms with internet – focused strategies – in both the physical and virtual environments.

This paper examines this new phenomenon in the international legal environment through the analysis of Yahoo!'s website internationalization and a review of American cyberlaw jurisprudence.

This paper suggests that firms with Internet‐focused strategies are aware of the asymmetries in the application and enforcement of extraterritorial judgments, and use these asymmetries as a component of their website internationalization strategy. This paper also suggests that previous calls for the regulation of cyberspace, which are based only on an analysis of the virtual environment, may provide misleading conclusions regarding the operation of international jurisdictional conflict.

This is a nonquantitative analysis and scope‐limited to American law.

The paper contain practical and actionable information, and suggests framework for future quantitative and nonquantitative research.

This is the only paper, known to the author, to investigate cyberspace jurisprudence using theories from Law and International Business.

When examining the issue of consumers in cyberspace, there appear to be two recurring narratives. One refers to the unidimensional perspective of marketing and how marketing tries to annex the cyberspace and regards the consumer as fair game in its profit‐seeking enterprise. The second narrative views consumers as trying to use cyberspace as a place to exercise their freedoms, establish their identities and use the cyberspace as a lifeworld in a Habermasian sense. This paper is an attempt to explicate this tension.

Proposes the “cyberpunk librarian” as an identity for the librarian able to operate in the emerging cyberspace. Describes the properties and culture of this electronic frontier. Reviews a broad range of literature to identify future directions for libraries and librarians who will have to seek a response to the major social impact of technology‐driven change. Argues that librarians are presented with an opportunity to reaffirm and assert their professional values and beliefs. They can help to shape a vision of cyberspace that provides benefits to society and individuals based on a fair and equitable distribution of information resources.

Purpose – To examine corporate social responsibility in cyberspace within the context of the experience of Google Corporation in China in order to provide greater understanding of the complexities that corporations encounter when operating across cyber borders.Design/methodology/approach – The research is grounded in the theoretical debate: The Internet as democratic and universal space versus the Internet as autocratic and sovereign space. Historical analysis is drawn from the case of Google Corporation in China.Findings – Freedom in cyberspace is more likely to be advanced universally with a collective commitment to corporate social responsibility in the information technology sector.Research limitations/implications – The study provides insights into the appropriate balance between the ethical responsibilities of the firm and its need to compete and survive in the highly competitive information age.Originality/value of chapter – The case of Google Corporation in China offers a venue for further discussion on the ethical role of transnational information technology corporations and their improvements in fostering human rights and free enterprise in cyberspace.

This article engages with the question of the otherness of cyberspace, VR, and hypertext, and how they are distinguished as “new” from “the traditional.” It begins by noting how this “new” present is distinguished by familiar binary oppositions like now vs. past and modern vs. traditional which rely on the notion of a new that is uncontaminated by the old. Both our enthusiasm for the singularly liberating nature of this new future as cybertechnophiles, and our Luddite resistance to its singularly fascistic and panoptic encirclement are similarly informed by this binary opposition. The paper then notes how the other in this opposition is a “domestic other.” Thus we always-already know what the other is all about. Arguing that if the other were radically other and not “domesticated,” one could not give an account of it in this way, the paper concludes that such alterity requires a rethinking of how one knows the other. The difference between this “wild” other and the “domestic” other is not an external difference but is radical; it is at the root. Therefore, our notions of space, reality, and text need to be complicated and rethought to accommodate what they seem to oppose: cyberspace, virtual reality, and hypertext.

This article attempts to explain and analyse the nature and characteristic features of a person’s privacy in the on‐line environment in order to assess how these features shape the need for protection. Since the internet has invaded our everyday lives, individual privacy is exposed in different ways in cyberspace. It is important to note that the Internet lacks the traditional characteristics of a ‘physical’ space, but the interests and inherent values protected by privacy remain the same in cyberspace. The article discusses the factors that shape a different nature of online privacy compared to its off line counterpart. Online privacy may not be a novel right, but it is definitely one exposed to a whole new environment which has its own special need for protection.

As computers, the Internet, online digital resources, and eventually the National Information Infrastructure become increasingly important in our lives, the study of the use of these technologies has become one of the fastest growing areas in social science. This research is important, but, like any kind of social science involving the study of human subjects, it raises questions of ethics and human dignity. Most major research universities have guidelines for this kind of scholarship, based on the Nuremberg Code and/or the Belmont Principles. But research in cyberspace was clearly not on the minds of those drafting these guidelines. Some of the difficulties produced by this tension between traditional guidelines and new technologies are discussed.