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 apparently due to fears about child pornography and other tasteless websites being available for children to view, as well as social networking abuse by predatory adults. 

A Look at Censorship.

Censorship of Internet content is on the rise, and it is not just limited to communist China anymore.  For example, in the UK, a page wtihin Wikipedia (and in some instances, the entire Wikipedia site) was blocked because of a complaint filed with a quasi-governmental agency known as the IWF.  Because the offending content was an image of an album cover, there was the possibility that Amazon’s US auction and shopping 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.  The regulatory environment may be further impacted by 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.

Nationwide Filtering.

Australia’s “great firewall” is a proposal that, if passed and if it becomes mandatory, will be the most obtrusive form of government control of the Internet in a democratized country.  Ostensibly for filtering out child pornography, the firewall has sparked 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.  Although the filter is not completely accurate and its effectiveness is therefore questionable, it slows down Internet speeds by up to 86%. 

Internet Taxes.

On a federal level in the United States, there have been rumors about Internet taxation for many years but nothing has come of it.  Many Americans, including Congressional representatives, are leery of an Internet sales tax.  State governments, on the other hand, are eyeing the Internet as a source of revenue.  New York state, for instance, imposed various vendor and affiliate registration requirements that would make non-resident sellers responsible for reporting New York state sales taxes.  Amazon, which has affiliates all over the world, has sued, and as of this writing, a decision has not been rendered.  Do not be shocked if Internet taxes become an issue in the near future.

Licensing and Disclosures.

There has been talk by some legislators that people should be licensed to use the Internet.  Their rationale is that if a person has to get a license to drive a car, he or she needs 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.    Learn how to write a good privacy statement and policies page at the Not Guru blog.

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