Who should Control the Internet?
The report about the intentions of the United States to let go its long years of control of the internet traffic, that appeared in The New York Times dated March 14, 2014, is indeed good news. If and when this come to pass the world shall have opened a new chapter on the way the internet is managed in general, and the safeguarding of the individual rights over the use of the internet.
Whereas the internet is generally good for prosperity in today’s world, it also has the potential of being destructive if abused. Many people across the world today use the internet responsibly to better their own lives and those of others. In this way the internet has, since its inception, created a great positive impact on various fields including communication, commerce, education and medicine just to mention a few. On the other hand, a minority group has also used the internet wrongly to carry out a number of criminal activities including terrorism and other cybercrimes like money laundering and promotion of prostitution and pornography.
It is therefore important that the activities that go on in the internet be monitored and regulated. However, this function must be given to an independent body for the purpose of fairness to all the internet users. There are a lot of innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, for instance, that are exchanged via the internet. Some of these ideas belong to individuals, corporates or nations. These individuals, corporates or nations spend colossal amounts of resources to have these ideas in place. To have one nation, with its own selfish interests, being privy to such kinds of ideas is to give that nation an undue advantage over the others. It is therefore important to have an independent body to regulate the internet to safeguard the interests of all the users.