UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
College of Law
⋄
Internet Service Provider Liability
under the ECT Act
Second Semester Assessment 02 — 2026
⋄
Module Code: LML4810
Module Name: Law of Multimedia
Assignment No.: Assessment 02/2026
Due Date: Monday, 7 September 2026
Semester: Second Semester 2026
Unique Number: 278100
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for LML4810
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | LML4810 ISP Liability under the ECT Act
Question 2.1: The ISP Regime under the ECT Act
Identify and discuss the provisions under the Electronic Communications and Transactions
Act 25 of 2002 (ECTA) that give rise to the ISP regime in South Africa, and how a ‘service
provider’ is defined and regulated in terms of the ECTA.
Genius Gurus, in entering the South African market as an Internet Service Provider, steps into
a regulatory framework that was deliberately built to shield intermediaries such as itself from
the wide and largely unpredictable liability that would otherwise attach to a party that merely
carries or stores information created by others. That framework sits in Chapter XI of the
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002,1 which is headed “Limitation
of Liability of Service Providers” and was inserted precisely because the ordinary common
law of delict, if applied without modification to an ISP, would have exposed a mere network
operator to the same liability as the original author of defamatory, infringing, or otherwise
unlawful content.
2.1.1 The Statutory Definition of a Service Provider
Section 70 of the ECT Act provides that, for the purposes of Chapter XI, “service provider”
means any person providing information system services.2 That phrase is itself defined in
section 1, the general interpretation section of the Act, as including the provision of connec-
tions, the operation of facilities for information systems, the provision of access to infor-
mation systems, the transmission or routing of data messages between or among points
specified by a user, and the processing and storage of data at the individual request of the
recipient of the service.3 This is a functional rather than a formal definition: it does not ask
what a business calls itself, but what it actually does. Genius Gurus, in supplying connectiv-
ity, routing traffic, and very likely hosting customer websites or email, falls squarely within
this description on the facts alone, without needing any further licence or registration to be
recognised as a service provider in the ordinary sense of the word.
The width of the definition is deliberate. Van der Merwe and others observe that the ECT Act’s
drafters aligned the concept of information system services with the internationally recog-
nised categories of conduit, caching, and hosting functions, so that the same statutory lan-
guage could accommodate access providers, hosting companies, search engines, and other
1
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, ch XI (ss 70–79).
2
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, s 70.
3
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, s 1 sv ‘information system services’.
Page 1 of 12
College of Law
⋄
Internet Service Provider Liability
under the ECT Act
Second Semester Assessment 02 — 2026
⋄
Module Code: LML4810
Module Name: Law of Multimedia
Assignment No.: Assessment 02/2026
Due Date: Monday, 7 September 2026
Semester: Second Semester 2026
Unique Number: 278100
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for LML4810
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | LML4810 ISP Liability under the ECT Act
Question 2.1: The ISP Regime under the ECT Act
Identify and discuss the provisions under the Electronic Communications and Transactions
Act 25 of 2002 (ECTA) that give rise to the ISP regime in South Africa, and how a ‘service
provider’ is defined and regulated in terms of the ECTA.
Genius Gurus, in entering the South African market as an Internet Service Provider, steps into
a regulatory framework that was deliberately built to shield intermediaries such as itself from
the wide and largely unpredictable liability that would otherwise attach to a party that merely
carries or stores information created by others. That framework sits in Chapter XI of the
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002,1 which is headed “Limitation
of Liability of Service Providers” and was inserted precisely because the ordinary common
law of delict, if applied without modification to an ISP, would have exposed a mere network
operator to the same liability as the original author of defamatory, infringing, or otherwise
unlawful content.
2.1.1 The Statutory Definition of a Service Provider
Section 70 of the ECT Act provides that, for the purposes of Chapter XI, “service provider”
means any person providing information system services.2 That phrase is itself defined in
section 1, the general interpretation section of the Act, as including the provision of connec-
tions, the operation of facilities for information systems, the provision of access to infor-
mation systems, the transmission or routing of data messages between or among points
specified by a user, and the processing and storage of data at the individual request of the
recipient of the service.3 This is a functional rather than a formal definition: it does not ask
what a business calls itself, but what it actually does. Genius Gurus, in supplying connectiv-
ity, routing traffic, and very likely hosting customer websites or email, falls squarely within
this description on the facts alone, without needing any further licence or registration to be
recognised as a service provider in the ordinary sense of the word.
The width of the definition is deliberate. Van der Merwe and others observe that the ECT Act’s
drafters aligned the concept of information system services with the internationally recog-
nised categories of conduit, caching, and hosting functions, so that the same statutory lan-
guage could accommodate access providers, hosting companies, search engines, and other
1
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, ch XI (ss 70–79).
2
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, s 70.
3
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, s 1 sv ‘information system services’.
Page 1 of 12
