The Legal Framework for Digital Service Providers

Abstract

This research addresses the legal framework governing digital service providers, recognized as a rapidly evolving and dynamic legal subject inherently linked to one of the world's most critical contemporary environments: the modern digital environment. The research aims to elucidate the legal nature of digital service providers by clarifying their legal statuses, as well as outlining the prominent legal and technical obligations imposed upon them pursuant to international conventions and comparative legislation regulating this vital category. Collectively, these frameworks demonstrate that this category possesses a distinct legal status that entails consequential legal obligations, the breach of which invokes legal liability. The research concludes that despite the variance in approaches adopted by international conventions and comparative legislation—from which the Jordanian legislator was not isolated—in defining the legal nature of digital service providers through their legal statuses, there exists a global legal consensus recognizing the legal statuses of this category. Consequently, these statuses entail obligations, the non-fulfillment of which necessitates legal recourse and accountability.