03/25/96 HERE COMES THE CYBER JUDGE

HERE COMES THE CYBER JUDGE

YOU'VE SEEN IT BEFORE: Someone posts a defamatory comment on an online service. Or an article or other form of intellectual property is illegally copied on the Net. It's all too common. What's a cyber victim to do? Since such disputes began to arise in online communities, they have generally been handled by ``sysops,'' the people whose job it is to maintain order on online services such as CompuServe or America Online. However, on the free-form Web, there has been little recourse aside from lengthy court proceedings.
Starting this month, there's a judicial process designed for online disputes--whether on the Net or commercial services. The online arbitration system, called the Virtual Magistrate Project, was created by the National Center for Automated Information Research, a technology think tank, Villanova University, and the American Arbitration Assn. Complaints can be registered via E-mail (vmagmail.law.vill.edu) or at the project's Web site (http://vmag.law.vill.edu: 8080).
Both parties to a dispute must agree to abide by the decision reached by a Virtual Magistrate arbitrator, usually within three days. Think of it as George Jetson meets Judge Wapner.
``We hope to keep cases out of court,'' says Robert Gellman, the executive director of the Virtual Magistrate Project.
EDITED BY AMY CORTESE