Internet & which country's law applies

[CN624]

Does anyone know which laws apply on the internet?
Is a website (and its owners) subject only to the law in which the site is hosted?
e.g If a site is hosted in the US but has content that was illegal in some way in Afghanistan can they in theory be prosecuted (by the Afghan authorities)?

 

[Vazelothir]

most likely that the laws of the hosting country apply, unless the website owners have interests in another country..

e.g If a site is hosted in the US but has content that was illegal in some way in Afghanistan they could in theory be prosecuted in Afghanistan if they have a presence in Afghanistan..

have a search for cases involving Yahoo & Google - yahoo was sued by a french organisation for listing nazi sites and if i remember correctly google was sued for copyright violation in germany because of listing of brand names...

[broken link removed]