Relações consumeristas na prestação de serviços de acesso a internet.

Abstract

There was no way to foresee and no one expected that the computers and the Internet would cause such a social revolution. All areas have been affected. The society, the communications, the social customs, the individuality, the relationships, and life in general, nothing has been the same after computers popularization and the advent of the Internet. A few decades ago the simultaneous and real-time exchange of information between people separated by thousands of miles would be unthinkable. What could we understand by an epurchase or an e-contract ? Nothing, because, only in science fiction movies we could conceive of a person being connected to the universe and having access to a humongous arsenal of data and information greater than all collections of world museums and libraries. There is no knowledge in this revolution of another means of communication that has provoked so many changes, so much controversy and also brought so many benefits and harm to humankind as the Internet. How to act with prudence, celerity and reasonableness towards the new and unceasing questions about robotics, informatics, cybernetics and the Internet, with their numberless-- national and supranational--legal, sociological, cultural, political, philosophical, biological, personal, familiar and collective repercussions, among others? New parameters and paradigms have been created. Words like spam , cookies , hosting , host , login , ip , virus , connection , provider and access became a part of our daily routine. And with the words, came the problems. Low connectivity, access restrictions, invasion of privacy, virus transmission, excessive publicity and, most of all, damages to consumers. All this modern technology raises new questions and conflicts. And the law, being a social science, may and shall regulate, in an adequate and opportune manner, the advance and growth of mass technology, particularly in the Internet. This study aims at determining, by means of a doctrinal, jurisprudential and empirical analysis, a position for the law operator on questions involving the means of connection between Internet users and the cybernetic world--the Internet service provider--which means is nothing else than a service rendering, subject to the rules and responsibilities listed in the Consumer Defense Code