On the Understanding and Application of the Crime of Illegal Use of Information Network

With the continuous development of the network in modern society, a new type of crime called cybercrime has emerged.The Criminal Law Amendment (IX) Article 29 newly created the crime of illegal use of information network.However, legal application of this crime is still controversial.The issues mainly include four points.The first one is the risk of becoming nominal due to ignore the understanding of this crime's attribute of helping behavior.Secondly, the interpretation of "illegal crime" has been broadened overly.Thirdly, it is easy to be confused with neutral online publishing behavior.Finally, the boundary between this crime and related crime is unclear.The reasons are the complexity of cybercrime itself and the lack of clarity in the legislation and judicial interpretation of new crimes.If the above problems remain unresolved for a long time, it will lead to the phenomenon of different sentences in the same case, or confuse the boundary between this crime and other crimes.A more serious situation would be to unduly restrict the freedom of the population to use the information network.Therefore, it is necessary to improve judicial interpretations of this crime.In order to achieve a reasonable and uniform application of this crime, this crime's attribute of helping behavior should be admitted and the constituent elements should be adopted a strict restrictive interpretation.Additionally, the scope of neutral online publishing behavior should be limited.Finally, distinction between this crime and related crimes reasonably is also necessary.