Vinton Cerf, often called one of the "fathers of the Internet," worries
that the spectacular gains brought by technology are under threat as
more governments curtail free and open access.
FULL STORY
November 30, 2012 -- Updated 1118 GMT (1918 HKT)
Cerf says several regimes reportedly propose an anonymity ban, making it easier to find dissidents.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Some 42 countries filter and censor content out of the 72 studied by the Open Net Initiative
- According to an OECD study, the net already accounts of 13% of American business output
- At Google, Cerf says the company sees dangers of a government-led net crackdown
- A state-controlled regulatory system is unnecessary and would invariably raise costs
Editor's note: Vinton
Cerf is Google's chief internet evangelist. He, along with American
computer scientist Bob Kahn, is often called one of the "fathers of the
Internet." Cerf is credited with helping to develop the protocols and
structure of the internet and the first commercial email system.
(CNN) -- The internet empowers each one of us to
speak, create, learn and share. Today, more than two billion people are
online — about a third of the planet.
The internet has become
one of the motors of the 21st century economy, allowing all of us to
reach a global audience at a click of a mouse and creating hundreds of
thousands of businesses and millions of jobs.
According to a new OECD study,
the net already accounts of 13% of American business output, impacting
every industry, from communications to cars, and restaurants to retail.
Not since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, or Alexander
Graham Bell the telephone, has a human invention empowered so many and
offered so much possibility for benefiting humankind.
Vinton Cerf
Today, this free and open net is under threat. Some 42 countries filter and censor content
out of the 72 studied by the Open Net Initiative. This doesn't even
count serial offenders such as North Korea and Cuba. Over the past two
years, Freedom House says governments have enacted 19 new laws threatening online free expression.
Some of these governments
are trying to use a closed-door meeting of The International
Telecommunication Union that opens on December 3 in Dubai to further
their repressive agendas. Accustomed to media control, these governments
fear losing it to the open internet. They worry about the spread of
unwanted ideas. They are angry that people might use the internet to
criticize their governments.
The ITU is bringing
together regulators from around the world to renegotiate a decades-old
treaty that was focused on basic telecommunications, not the internet.
Some proposals leaked to the WICITLeaks
website from participating states could permit governments to justify
censorship of legitimate speech -- or even justify cutting off internet
access by reference to amendments to the International
Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs).
Several authoritarian
regimes reportedly propose to ban anonymity from the web, making it
easier to find and arrest dissidents. Others have proposed moving the
responsibilities of the private sector system that manages domain names
and internet addresses to the United Nations. Yet other proposals would
require any internet content provider, small or large, to pay new tolls
in order to reach people across borders.
The upshot? The next
garage-based phenomena would face a steep and probably insurmountable
financial hurdle in its effort to become the next YouTube, Facebook or
Skype.
Let us be clear: We do
not advocate for an end to the ITU. The UN agency has helped the world
manage radio spectrum and wired and wireless telephone networks,
bringing much needed investment to the developing world.
But this
inter-governmental agency is the wrong place to make decisions about the
future of the internet. Only governments have a vote at the ITU. This
includes governments that do not support a free and open internet.
Engineers, companies, and people that build and use the web have no
vote.
The multi-stakeholder
model of internet policy development that is the hallmark of the
Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers, the Internet Governance Forum, the Regional Internet
Registries, among many others, is the only sensible way forward.
Transparency and
openness are keys to informed participation in policy making. The
proposals for amending the ITRs are not generally available to the
public or other stakeholders. The treaty conference and proposals in
Dubai are formally confidential. We consider this to be a serious
deficiency and an inhibitor to thoughtful policy development.
At Google, we see and
feel the dangers of the government-led net crackdown. We operate in
about 150 countries around the globe. Our services - including Search,
YouTube and Blogger, to Gmail and Maps - have been blocked at some
point, temporarily or permanently, in more than 30 different countries.
We're not alone in
standing up. Users, experts and organizations from around the world have
voiced their opposition to governments justifying their regulation of
the internet through the ITU's International Telecommunication
Regulations. These include countries not just in the West, but also
African internet leaders such as Kenya and North African beacons such as
Tunisia.
In all, more than 1000
organizations from more than 160 countries have raised concerns about
the upcoming closed-door meeting in Dubai. Internet lovers around the
world can learn more about the issue on our website -- and if they choose to do so, can pledge their support.
While some governments
argue that the internet needs new global rules to speed its rollout in
the developing world, we believe the present market-driven approach is
best positioned to keep up with the net's exponential growth. Broadband
services are being rolled out. Service interruptions remain rare. Within
a few years the net is predicted to be serving four billion users --
more than half of humanity!
The bottom-up,
loosely-coupled, bilateral and multi-stakeholder practices that have
created the network of networks we call the internet allow for a broad
range of business models. The critical technical standards developed by
the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium
create interoperability.
A state-controlled
system of regulation is not only unnecessary, it would almost invariably
raise costs and prices and interfere with the rapid and organic growth
of the internet we have seen since its commercial emergence in the
1990s.
The net's future is far
from assured and history offers much warning. Within a few decades of
Gutenberg's creation, princes and priests moved to restrict the right to
print books.
History is rife with
examples of governments taking actions to "protect" their citizens from
harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of
expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
We must make sure, collectively, that the internet avoids a similar fate.
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