The Off-line Juridification of an On-line Space

This chapter shows how doctrinal legal debates and solutions have sought to reconcile the regulation of digital transformation throughout physical coordinates. It investigates the application of the online mimesis of the physical world, but it shows how the result turned to be the opposite: the territorialization of the digital sphere through the application of territorial limitations to data. The chapter focuses on the contrasting theories related to Kelsenian normativism and Schmittian decisionism, offering two models of dealing with territoriality. Moving from the dichotomy decisionism/normativism as applied to digital space, the chapter finally addresses the relationship between data governance and infrastructures but also conceptualizes the idea of data space as a functional modality of data sharing whose function replaces space.