The Growing Need for International Internet Cooperation

This week, leaders from around sixty countries are attending an international conference on Internet security in London.  The ultimate goal of the conference is establishing international cooperation on issues facing the development of standards on issues from cyber-security to copyright protection.  Posing one of the most significant questions that the conference hopes to address, Vice President Joe Biden asked, “How do we achieve security for nations, people and business online without compromising the openness that is one of the Internet's greatest attributes?”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague tried to impress upon the conference the need for swift action.  In describing the severity of the problems currently facing the Internet, he stated, “Building this consensus is one of the great challenges of our time. It must be pursued with the same intensity as efforts to eradicate global poverty or tackle climate change.”

For Britain’s contribution to the conference, Mr. Hague put forth the following seven principles that the United Kingdom thinks should be the basis for any international agreement on the issue:

• The need for governments to act proportionately in cyberspace and in accordance with international law;
• The need for everyone to have the ability to access cyberspace
• The need for users of cyberspace to show tolerance and respect for diversity of language, culture and ideas;
• That cyberspace remains open to innovation and the free flow of ideas, information and expression;
• The need to respect individual rights of privacy and to provide proper protection to intellectual property;
• The need for us all to work together collectively to tackle the threat from criminals acting online;
• The promotion of a competitive environment, which ensures a fair return on investment in networks, services and content.

However, getting full international cooperation will not be easy, as countries like China and Russia continue to place further restrictions on access to the Internet.  China in particular has run afoul of Mr. Hague’s principles in recent years, having routinely imprisoned dissidents for posting online and restricting access to sites.

“How do we achieve security for nations, people and business online without compromising the openness that is one of the Internet's greatest attributes?”

One such dissident who has become a something of a rally point in China is Chen Guancheng, a man arrested and imprisoned for four years for accusing family planning officials of forcing abortions and sterilization on women.  Though released from prison in 2010, Chen remains under house arrest in his home village, where demonstrators have gathered to support him, only to be beaten by Chinese authorities.

China’s reaction to such demonstrations is unsurprising, as they keep tight control on the 400 million Internet users in the country.  They attempt to assert this control online through the use of thousands of censors who are tasked with searching out and removing anti-government materials as quickly as possible.  Additionally, the Chinese government employs citizens to post pro-government material online, offering as much as fifty cents per post.

Tight restrictions on the Internet are not isolated in repressive countries, as Facebook will find out when it moves its European servers to Sweden in 2013.  A law there allows Swedish authorities to intercept and search any Internet communications that take place inside their borders without having to acquire a warrant.  With the server locating there, the Swedish government will be allowed unfettered access to the entire continent’s public and private Facebook content.  The law has already caused Google to state that they will never place a server in the country, calling the law “unfit for Western democracy.”

With the increasingly connected nature of the global economy, international agreements on Internet regulation are seemingly inevitable. However, progress might be slow as the more restrictive countries fight against the rest of the world to keep information freedom away from their citizens.  Hopefully further progress will be made on the issue at upcoming conferences in Hungary in 2012 and South Korea in 2013.