I had to spend a considerable amount of time enlightening the regulating bodies about what the Internet really is especially when fighting about the Communications Decency Act. However, many politicians still don't get the overall picture of the Internet and its economical and social impacts because they are only concerned about the things that need regulating. This can cause great harm to individual national economies. There is no way a government can take all of this into account. On the other hand, even national governments don't have quite as little power over the Internet as is often said.
Politicians can, for example, impose taxes on Net transactions.
The effects of decisions of this kind, however, are often more difficult to judge and can be fatal. Personally, I am rather against such laws. At least for the moment I think it is too early. We will have to experiment with the medium and the technologies before we take decisive steps. The good thing about the Framework for Global Electronic Commerce set up by Ira Magaziner and the Clinton administration was that it triggered a lot of discussion.