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The debate about the future of the internet is intensifying, and it is critical that a broad section of society does participate in the debates running up to the important WCIT conference. It was good to see that the ITU took the initiative to open up the debate beyond its member organisations. This has now been followed up with this website that will most certainly stimulate a passionate public discussion. Here is my contribution. In 2012 around a third of the global population is using the Internet. This is quite remarkable when considering there were only around 350 million users worldwide at the start of the decade. Within a few years it is expected that 5 billion people will be connected, clearly the Internet is now everybody’s business. On the one hand we were lucky that the internet in its current format was invented by academics and innovative independent entrepreneurs rather than by governments and vested interests. Furthermore, the various elements of the internet are built by private companies and as such are also owned by them – very little ‘internet ownership’ is in the hands of governments. The internet would never have been developed if it had been left to governments, telcos or the international institutions around them. The reality now is that the political stakes of the internet have risen significantly. On the one side there are the community forces that would like to keep it free, as in free of (excessive) government interference; while on the other side there are the forces who want to see more control over the internet. In this politically charged environment there are several forces at work in and around the internet: · Certain groups want greater regulation on content and copyright (SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, ACTA, TPP); · technologically-advanced nations are now also using it for cyber warfare; · several developing economies want to assert greater control over it; · other countries want greater protection for children and other vulnerable people in their societies; · the internet community wants to keep it as free as possible from national or international interference. · commercial interests in this trillion-dollar industry A positive outcome of the WCIT discussions could be to look at the internet community and see how these organisations can be used to play more of a leadership role. Once the internet community organisation is properly funded and stocked with the right international people to manage what is needed to watch over internet governance it will be an excellent partner in the broader community of international organisations. There could be arrangements that, for example, could see organisations such as UN, UNESCO, ITU, WTO, WIPO and others to either become directly involved in, or affiliated with, the internet body, and they could work together to address the many different elements involved in internet governance, including issues around copyright, privacy, child pornography, cyber crime, cyber warfare and so on. Within such an environment it is also possible to untangle the debate and assess: · the control issue – does that indeed exist, and if so who has control and who does not, and does it matter? · properly separate issues such as infrastructure, content, cultural differences and organise proper management of those issues by the most relevant organisations. · assess what falls under local jurisdictions and what requires international arrangements. Most issues do not require international consensus, and processes that do require it should be kept to a minimum anyway. But the overarching aim should be to keep the internet as free as possible within the international fabric that it has created around it. Paul Budde Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd 5385 George Downes Drive Bucketty NSW 2250, Australia Tel 02 4998 8144, Fax 02 4998 8247 email: paul@xxx |