ABSTRACT
Changes in laws are inevitable in any dynamic society. As social and economic customs change over time, often in response to or in conjunctionwith technological change, the old laws become increasingly ineffective in their application, giving rise to a need for legal change that will permit efficient transactions to take place in the new environment. Thus, for example, the real property laws that were appropriate in a feudal system became increasingly irrelevant and cumbersome over time, say, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, when continuing growth required the law to recognize a society where the population was increasingly mobile. The restraints on alienability of land that were appropriate during feudal times acted as a constraint on growth during the Industrial Revolution. The laws had to change to accommodate the changed technology and customs. Amodern example is found in the debate on regulating privacy on the Internet. In this case, the change in technology has permitted the gathering of personally identifying information in a manner never possible before. The European Union has chosen to comprehensively regulate the collection of such information, while the US is still waiting.
