Tide Rising at OECD for International Debate on Internet Policy

Rapid growth in participation in social networking, content sharing and blog sites are among the new ways the Internet is changing business, society and the economy, said Gary Davis, Deputy Commissioner of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland. The down side is privacy and copyright infringement and obscene user-created content postings, said Sangwon Ko, vice chairman of the OECD Working Party on the Information Economy and an executive director at the Korea Information Society Development Institute.

Big issues for the coming decade are social networking, especially by young people, the volume of interactions that cross international borders, and enforcement, said Hugh Stevenson, deputy director, Office of International Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission. Consent is the biggest concern about the information put on sites, Davis said. Consent for adults can be clear, but it’s another matter for underaged users, he said. Consent for third parties to use data can be difficult to understand, especially when a company is sold, officials said.

The OECD Ministerial Conference must help deal with intellectual property and network neutrality concerns and the way that governments and citizens interact, said Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. Defining the roles of government and international organizations is crucial, he said. But an ever-increasing amount of user data is stored in far-flung places that may have different regulatory systems, officials said.

Government should play a decisive role in infrastructure investment through wise competition policy, Ko said: “We push for facility-based competition rather than service-based competition.” Government investment is less than 5 percent. But pushing for facilities-based competition increases the risk of overinvestment, Ko said. Consensus is building in support of education, federally funded research, privacy, trust, dealing with malware and improving access to affordable high-speed networks, an official said.

Private organizations are enthusiastic about balancing debate on public policy for the future of the Internet, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and civil-society representative to the OECD. Groups are concerned about government approaches to consumer protection, promoting broadband deployment, competition, privacy and security, and respect for varying cultures, Rotenberg said.

Nebulous yet thorny problems will likely be aired during the ministerial, officials said: Interoperability and standards, digital identity, privacy and control are high priorities; how national legal frameworks translate into the virtual world is up for debate; liability of Internet intermediaries may be reviewed; the need for media literacy is emerging; new ways may be found to reward content creators: a large network effect that brings global users to one Internet site may smack of monopoly.

Closed meetings of the OECD Information, Computer and Communications Policy group Thursday and Friday concern high- level principles for guiding development of the Internet economy. Another meeting on the ministerial declaration and background documents will take place in March.

The participative Web conference is one of several preparations for the Ministerial Conference. Other conferences covered next-generation networks, social and economic factors shaping the future of the Internet, creation access and distribution of digital content and RFID. The OECD Ministerial Meeting is June 17 and 18, 2008, in Seoul, South Korea. -- Scott Billquist

Washington Internet Daily won’t be published on Monday, October 8, in observance of the Columbus Day federal holiday. Our next issue will appear Tuesday, October 9.