In mid-2008, Rasmussen conducted a poll to find out how Americans felt about Internet regulation. 49% said that they thought the government should regulate the Internet in much the same way that it regulates radio and television.
This trend toward government regulation of the Internet is apparently due to fears about child pornography and other tasteless websites being available for children to view, as well as social networking abuse by predatory adults.
A Look at Censorship.
China is not the only place that censors Internet content. The trend is on a rise worldwide. For example, in the UK, a page wtihin Wikipedia (and in some instances, the entire Wikipedia site) was blocked because of a complaint filed with a quasi-governmental agency known as the IWF. 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.
Filtering on a National Scale.
Australia's "great firewall" is a proposal that, if passed and if it becomes mandatory, will be the most obtrusive form of government control of the Internet in a democratized country. 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. Despite the fact that the filter is not totally accurate or effective, 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. However, state governments are eyeing the Internet as a source of much-needed revenue. For instance, the state of New York has imposed a tough state sales tax law that would make non-resident vendors responsible for reporting taxes on sales to New York residents. Amazon, which has a strong worldwide affiliate program, has sued and as of this writing, a decision has not been rendered. Do not be shocked if Internet taxes become an issue in the near future.
Licensing and Disclosures.
As odd as it sounds, there has been some talk by a handful of legislators that people should be licensed to surf 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. While it is unlikely that this idea will gain traction, it is not unreasonable to speculate that content writers will need to follow licensing and disclosure requirements for their web publications. 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. Given the increasing public opinion that the Internet should be regulated, it is likely that we Internet publishers will see an increasing amount of regulatory proposals that may affect us.
There is something that web publishers can do right now to protect themselves, and that is to include a legally sound privacy policy statement on their websites. Learn how to write a good privacy statement and policies page at the Not Guru blog.
Internet regulation and trends are periodically discussed here: Internet Regulation articles at the NotGuru blog.
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