It has been a tremendous pleasure to work with leading academic and judicial figures from five countries in producing this collection which addresses issues in UK, European, US, Australian, New Zealand and Asian privacy law. This project began with an Australian Research Council discovery grant on privacy and the internet, awarded to Sam Ricketson, Megan Richardson and Lesley Hitchens, and then took on a life of its own. A series of public seminars on ‘Privacy: New Issues and Policies’ was presented under the auspices of the CMCL – Centre for Media and Communications Law – at the University of Melbourne during 2003 and 2004. We are grateful to the Law School and the sponsors of the CMCL for their support of the events, and to the administrative staff at the CMCL who make such seminars run so smoothly.

After the seminar series, we commissioned further chapters to increase the collection's breadth and depth, as well as developing all the chapters with their authors. Thanks to Cambridge University Press for their enthusiastic support for this publication as well as to two anonymous referees who gave some most helpful insights and suggestions on our original proposal. We also appreciate the contributions of Martin Vranken, in translating the chapter by Yves Poullet and Marc Dinant, and of Kate MacNeill and Jason Bosland at the CMCL for their assistance during the editing phase.