Postal service operate under certain laws and restrictions, especially when mail is sent internationally. But anonymity, it seems, has its limits. Someone anonymously posted copyrighted secrets about the Church of Scientology to a newsgroup. The inevitable lawsuit hit, and a Finnish court decided the operator of the site, Johan Helsingius, should be forced to reveal the identity of the poster. Helsingius has now had to close down his system.
Many European authorities are worried about the dissemination of pornography on the Internet.
In December 1995, Bavarian prosecutors stormed into the German headquarters of CompuServe, an American on-line service, with a warrant to ban 200 allegedly pornographic newsgroups. In France and the UK there has been police action against paedophiles who have been using the Internet to distribute child pornography images. In August 1996 British Internet providers and members of Scotland Yard's Clubs and Vice Unit met to discuss the pornography carried on Internet newsgroups many of which deal with sexual topics. The police explained that the alternatives were police action against the providers or self-regulation. While there is much to be said for the softly-softly attitude of the police, the approach has a number of deficiencies.