Problem: Market Forces and Government Regulation

A discussion of regulating business conducted through the Internet must begin with the impact the market has in developing (or, put another way, "regulating") appropriate business behavior. For example, the photo- and video-sharing social network Instagram triggered a public outcry late in 2012 by announcing a change in its terms of use that would allow it to use posted photos for advertising purposes without specific permission of the poster and without providing a general opt-out mechanism. Within a day, the provision was removed. In regulating the functioning of the Internet and its component parts, global norms are required. At present many norms, such as the assignment of top-level domain names (.com, .org, and so forth) and the system for routing digital traffic, are set by the United States. The European Union and Brazil in particular have argued matters of Internet governance should be globalized, instead of continuing to rest with the United States. In April 2014, Brazil hosted a conference, In March 2014, the United States indicated a willingness to relinquish its control over the Internet, and several international meetings are scheduled over the next few years to seek a consensus solution.6 One function of the Internet is as a mass communications system.

Much like the traditional broadcast systems of radio and TV, the Internet can deliver the same content to an infinite number of users. Most, if not all, countries regulate content delivered by traditional broadcast systems. This will likely continue to be true for content delivered through the Internet, as we will further discuss in Part Three. The Internet also delivers private communications between particular users, much as a phone system. In general, Western governments do not censor private communications, but they do at times seek information from carriers about the existence of participants in private communications. Governments also seek access to the content of private communications sent through public networks as, for example, through phone wiretaps. In the digital world, the content of private communications can be stored for substantial lengths of time as data on the equipment of the service provider, making a much larger volume of such communications subject to government access. Again, market forces have little bearing on government access to such information, although the political maelstrom raised by Edward Snowden's disclosures about U.S. surveillance programs does seem likely to result in significant changes to some of the government's practices. Such government access rules vary significantly among countries. Service providers subject to the jurisdiction of a particular country must comply with those rules, although at times a provider may elect not to do business in a particular country rather than subject itself to access demands with which it disagrees.

The Digital Divide

The divide in the United States is not just along economic lines, but also along race, age, and geographic lines. Seventy-six percent of white households are connected, but only 57 percent of African-American households; 75 percent of those under 65 use the Internet, but only about 50 percent of those 65 and older; and the lowest Internet usage is in Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. Although nearly 98 percent of American households are located where broadband is available, 20 percent of American adults are not connected-not at home, at work, through public access points such as libraries, or through a smartphone. Availability of service is not the problem; the cost of connecting and digital literacy are. But presumptions about availability exacerbate the disadvantages of the unconnected, as job announcements and applications, public school homework assignments, government services information and applications, among many other things, migrate to the web.7

Questions

1. Can you think of any imaginative ways to provide widespread Internet access in developing countries?

2. How would you deal with the reality that most Internet content is in English?