A Brief Review of Internet Regulation Trends
Written on January 7, 2009 – 4:57 pm | by Guru
In mid-2008, Rasmussen conducted a poll to find out how Americans felt about Internet regulation. Almost half said that they thought the government should regulate the Internet in much the same way that it regulates television and radio.
This trend toward government regulation of the Internet is due to fears about children being exposed to online violence or pornography and abuse by social networking predators.
A Look at Censorship.
China is not the only place that censors Internet content. The trend is on a rise worldwide. In the United Kingdom, for example, a page within Wikipedia (and in some instances, the entire Wikipedia site) was blocked due to a complaint filed with the IWF, a quasi-governmental agency. An album cover was viewed as offensive and inappropriate. Since it was a photo of a physical good, there was the possibility that Amazon’s US auction and shopping content would be blocked from UK viewers.
Also in the censorship arena is the increasing volume of politicians who are complaining about blogs not correctly reporting the facts about their campaigns or other political events. The regulatory environment may be further impacted by journalists and mainstream media who are seeing online content take a bite out of their readership and sales. While news and political reporting are not currently regulated in the United States, it would not be surprising if politicians begin to talk about licensing requirements or some form of authority ranking for blog owners and other online reporters.
Nationwide Filtering.
If it becomes law, Australia’s ‘great firewall’ will be the most restrictive mandatory government control of the Internet in the world’s democratic countries. The goal is to filter out child pornography, but the firewall has nonetheless sparked fierce debate, including free speech arguments. Reportedly, the government will ban at least 1300 websites. A problem is the lack of transparency or right to dispute a ban because the government has not disclosed the urls of the sites that will be on the banned list. Although the filter is not completely accurate and its effectiveness is therefore questionable, it slows down Internet speeds by up to 86%.
Internet Taxes.
On a federal level in the United States, there have been rumors about Internet taxation for many years but nothing has come of it. A federal Internet sales tax does not hold a lot of appeal for many Americans. Budget-challenged state governments, on the other hand, are eyeing the Internet as a source of revenue. New York state, for instance, imposed various vendor and affiliate registration requirements that would make non-resident sellers responsible for reporting New York state sales taxes. Amazon, which has a strong worldwide affiliate program, has sued and as of this writing, a decision has not been rendered. Do not be surprised if Internet taxation becomes an issue in upcoming years.
Licensing and Disclosure Requirements.
There has been talk by some legislators that people should be licensed to use the Internet. Their reasoning is that is someone is required to have a license to drive a car on our nation’s highways, then it is not unreasonable to expect a person to get a license to surf the Internet’s information highway. License requirements would include basic knowledge about anti-virus programs, email use and so forth. It is unlikely that this idea will gain any traction, but on the flip side, licensing and disclosures for Internet content publication may not be so ludicrous. Regulatory accountability is not a far-fetched idea, particularly if one views copyright suits, politicians complaining about the accuracy of news and blogs, and stringent regulation of medical claims with respect to health products. Take, for instance, Canada’s proposed Internet regulations (to be heard in February 2009) which would address Canadian copyright issues and might impose a rating system on websites that is similar to movie rating systems. Given the opinion of many Americans that the Internet should be regulated in the same way that radio and television is regulated, the logical conclusion is that Internet publishers will need to register with whatever agency is created to administer online media.
Conclusion.
The above examples provide a glimpse into what the future may hold when it comes to Internet regulation. In view of the growing desire of people to see more Internet regulation instead of self responsibility, it is likely that we as Internet publishers will see an increasing amount of regulatory proposals.
One thing that web publishers can do, right now, to start to protect themselves is to include a legally sound privacy policy statement on their websites.
Tags: Blogging, censorship, content filtering, Internet publishing, Internet regulation, privacy policy, privacy statement
