During the year 2008, Rasmussen conducted a poll to find out where Americans stood with respect to Internet regulation.  Almost half said that they thought the government should regulate the Internet in much the same way that it regulates television and radio.

This trend toward government regulation of the Internet is due to fears about children being exposed to online violence or pornography and abuse by social networking predators. 

A Brief Review of Censorship.

Censorship of Internet content is on the rise, and it is not just limited to communist China anymore.  In the United Kingdom, for example, a page within Wikipedia (and in some instances, the entire Wikipedia site) was blocked due to a complaint filed with the IWF, a quasi-governmental agency.  An album cover was viewed as offensive and inappropriate. Since it was a photo of a physical good, there was the possibility that Amazon’s US shopping and auction content would be blocked from UK viewers.

Within the censorship arena is the increasing volume of complaints from politicians who feel that blogs are not correctly reporting the facts about their campaigns or other political news.  Add to this mix the journalists and mainstream media who are seeing online content take a bite out of their readership and sales.  While news and political reporting are not currently regulated in the United States, it would not be surprising if politicians begin to talk about licensing requirements or some form of authority ranking for blog owners and other online reporters.

Filtering on a National Scale.

If it becomes law, Australia’s ‘great firewall’ will be the most restrictive mandatory government control of the Internet in the world’s democratic countries.  Ostensibly for filtering out child pornography, the firewall has fueled intense debate, including free speech arguments.  There are due process and transparency issues.  The government reportedly will ban 1300 websites, but the URLs have not been disclosed and their owners thus have no right to contest the government filtering.  Internet speeds are reduced by up to 86% but despite this, the filtering is not 100% accurate and is therefore not effective. 

Internet Taxes.

For years, there have been rumors in the US about a federal internet tax, but nothing has come of it.  Many Americans, including their representatives in Congress, are leery of an Internet sales tax.  State governments, on the other hand, are eyeing the Internet as a source of revenue.  For instance, the state of New York has imposed a tough state sales tax law that would make non-resident vendors responsible for reporting taxes on sales to New York residents.  Amazon, which has a strong worldwide affiliate program, has sued and as of this writing, a decision has not been rendered.  Watch for Internet taxation to become an issue in upcoming years.

Licensing and Disclosures.

Some legislators have talked about licensing Internet use.  Their reasoning is that is someone is required to have a license to drive a car on our nation’s highways, then it is not unreasonable to expect a person to get a license to surf the Internet’s information highway.  License requirements would include basic knowledge about anti-virus programs, email use and so forth.  While it is unlikely that this idea will gain traction, it is not unreasonable to speculate that content writers will need to follow licensing and disclosure requirements for their web publications.  With copyright violations, politicians griping about the accuracy of news, and regulations concerning what can and cannot be said with respect to medical or health related products online, public accountability is not a far fetched idea.  Take, for instance, Canada’s proposed Internet regulations (to be heard in February 2009) which would address Canadian copyright issues and might impose a rating system on websites that is similar to movie rating systems.  Given the opinion of many Americans that the Internet should be regulated in the same way that radio and television is regulated, the logical conclusion is that Internet publishers will need to register with whatever agency is created to administer online media.

Conclusion.

The above examples provide a glimpse into what the future may hold when it comes to Internet regulation.  Because so many people refuse to take responsibility for their children’s Internet activities and for their own Internet use, it is likely that we as Internet publishers will see an increasing amount of regulatory proposals.

The first step toward protecting oneself from Internet regulation is to publish a legally sound privacy policy statement on your website.    You can find out how to write a privacy policy at the NotGuru blog.

You can find periodic updates on the latest Internet regulatory trends here:  Internet Regulation articles at the NotGuru blog.