The internet must continue to be self-governed if it is to be
an engine for economic growth, delegates at the internetBest
Practice Challenge 2009awards ceremony heard last
week.
The internet, which has regulated itself for the past 40 years,
faces mounting pressure from politicians and law enforcement
agencies who want greater control over who can use it and for what.
One proposal doing the rounds is to give the role of governing the
internet to the International Telecommunications Union, a United
Nations body.
MP Alun Michael, who heads the UK
Internet Governance
Forum, said the internet industry needed to respond to calls to
tame the internet. "It is better to do that than to wait for
legislation and regulation," he said.
Michael said the UK government wanted to retain the internet's
self-governing arrangement. "This was set out in Chapter 7 of
[communications minister] Lord Carter's Digital Britain report," he
said.
Making a strong plea to continue the present self-regulatory
regime, Lesley Cowley, CEO of Nominet, the .uk domain registrar,
said the internet was the greatest contributor to British and world
economic development since the Renaissance. This was possible only
because its management was relatively free of red tape, she
said.
Nominet, which is owned and run by some 3,000 members - mainly
internet service providers - managed some eight million domain
names, she said. This made the UK the world's fourth largest domain
after .com, China and Germany.
She said Australia and New Zealand had followed Nominet's lead
in sponsoring a best practices competition that encourages firms to
improve the quality, usefulness, accessibility and safety of the
internet.
Michael said he would be helping to showcase the UK's winning
efforts from this year's competition in November when the UN
Internet Governance Forum meets in Sharm el Shaik to consider the
future of the internet.
The winners of Best Practice Challenge 2009 were:
• Rafi.ki, for improving
education development
• Business Crime Reduction
Centre, for helping mainly small businesses to improve their
online security
•Internet Service Providers
Association, for raising internet standards
•Childnet
International, for improving children's personal safety
online
•Screenreader.net,
for improving access to the internet for the blind
•British Library, for enhancing
access to cultural artefacts
•Get Safe Online, a
special award for cooperation.