Realising the Global Promise of the Internet: The Future of Internet Governance

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a report saying there should be an internet bill of rights. The report found two-thirds of respondents, attendees at the second Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro last November, to their survey agreed with the statement “A global internet Bill of Rights should be adopted.” Only six per cent disagreed.”Some key planks of the Bill of Rights would be: freedom of information, freedom of expression, and the right of people to have affordable access. Some 76% of respondents supported freedom of information as a core ethic of online life and 75% agreed that such a policy ensuring freedom of expression on the internet should be adopted.””On the other side of the issue, 62% of respondents said they believe content controls weaken the internet. And by a 59%-28% margin, they disagreed with the statement, ‘My country should have the right to approve the internet content available to the people of my country.'”Regarding ICANN, the survey found “nearly half of stakeholders (45%) agreed with the statement that the organization as it is structured today “is not effective and it should be placed in a more neutral, global control structure.” (see the report, p4)
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/260/report_display.aspA full copy of the survey findings can be downloaded from here – www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/predictions/IGF_RIO_SURVEY.pdf.And the most striking findings are these:There should be an internet Bill of Rights.
Respondents indicated strong support for the establishment of a global internet users Bill of Rights. Some 66% of those participating in this survey agreed with the statement: “A global internet Bill of Rights should be adopted.” Only 6% disagreed.Some key planks of the Bill of Rights would be: freedom of information, freedom of expression, and the right of people to have affordable access. Some 76% of respondents supported freedom of information as a core ethic of online life and 75% agreed that such a policy ensuring freedom of expression on the internet should be adopted.On the other side of the issue, 62% of respondents said they believe content controls weaken the internet. And by a 59%-28% margin, they disagreed with the statement, “My country should have the right to approve the internet content available to the people of my country.” Even more disagreed (63%) that a commercial internet service provider should have the right to control content. The survey participants also felt that even if some entity tried to control content on the internet, it would not be terribly successful. Some 47% agreed and 34% disagreed with the following assertion: “Policies that regulate content on the internet are not enforceable because of the borderless nature of the internet.”How a Global Internet Policy Might Look
On the eve of what could be a seismic shift in government, talk has been heating up about tech policy in the United States.But it’s worthwhile to remember that it is the World Wide Web, and in that spirit researchers from Elon University and the Pew Internet and American Life Project canvassed the world’s leading Internet activists to get an idea of what a global tech policy should look like.Pew today released the responses from the attendees of the second annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF), held November in Rio de Janeiro.
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3768156Whither the internet?
Last November, hundreds of government, industry leaders and internet activists from around the planet gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the second Internet Governance Forum. It was the one in a series of five annual meetings aimed at creating a global conversation about the future of the internet and perhaps recommendations to the United Nations and the World Summit on the Information Society about policies that might be developed to promote widespread public access to the internet and how the internet might be configured.We invited attendees to complete an online survey about their views of the role of the internet around the world and how about how governments and other regulators should structure policy about the internet. Some 206 IGF attendees (15% of Forum participants) from 65 countries responded to the survey. The results of this convenience sample are not representative of all Forum participants or internet activists. Still, the diverse sample provides some interesting perspectives on policy preferences from around the world.
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/260/report_display.asp

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