Communication on the open networks during the first half of the 1980s was more factual than personal. However, the expanding use of electronic mail increased the personal and individual character of this type of communication. Personal and emotional content became more and more common. This increased content interest. Branch organizations formulated ethical principles, and it was created around the balance between market control and legal control.At the time, legal regulation concerned the balance between public openness and personal integrity. Sweden was a country in the forefront. The number of concerns within the concept of content “control” increased.This text discusses the occurrence of ethical control on the networks of the 1980s. Many of these were videotex networks that were not technically standardized, they could rather be considered as technologically defined market islands. However, a certain “ethical standardization” appeared, which was to become important later, when the Internet arrived.