With so much attention focused on online censorship in highly restrictive countries such as China, Iran and Syria, the discussion of global Internet freedom often has tended to exclude the large class of more moderate nations with rapidly growing online populations with only a rudimentary set of laws and policies for the Web.

To the extent that the issue has received coverage in the mainstream press, the banner headlines have generally been reserved for the higher-profile flare-ups, recently seen in various Internet crackdowns amid the Arab spring uprisings or Google’s 2010 standoff with China over online censorship.

But for Bob Boorstin, Google’s director of corporate and policy communications, the greater uncertainty, both for U.S. businesses looking to new markets overseas and global Internet users, is found in the countries that have neither made forceful affirmations of online freedom nor implemented rigid, state-sanctioned censorship frameworks.

“The countries that I’m most concerned with in the next couple of years and that I think are most worth looking at are those in the middle — the Brazils and the Indias and Argentinas and the Chiles and the North African countries and Southeast Asian [countries], like Indonesia, the Philippines. And the question I want to put on the table is which way are they going to go?” Boorstin said here at an event hosted by the Media Access Project, a nonprofit public-interest law firm and advocacy group. “That’s the question that I’m focused on at the moment.”

Clinton Shines Light on Internet Freedom

Shortly after Google went public with the revelations that it had been targeted by a series of cyber attacks emanating from China and announced that it would no longer comply with that country’s Internet censorship rules, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Internet freedom the subject of a major policy speech in January 2010, an issue she has revisited in subsequent remarks.

Clinton cast the issue in terms of human rights and freedom of expression, and signaled that Internet freedom would become an integral part of U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic strategy.

Ben Scott, policy advisor for innovation at Clinton’s office, called that speech a “sea change” that served to elevate Internet issues to a first-tier item on the global policy agenda.

“Virtually everyone has woken up to the fact that the Internet matters to foreign policy,” Scott said on Tuesday. “This is an issue that no one can ignore anymore.”

But that broad acceptance that the Internet matters is not to be mistaken for anything close to consensus on the subject, Scott said.

He acknowledged that there is a rudimentary understanding that “technology is a catalyst for economic growth” throughout the international community, but added that he regularly meets with senior government, academic and business leaders around the world who do not believe that the Internet represents a net good, a starting point that is bound to prescribe a policy framework very different from that found in the United States and other countries where the Web is a generally open platform for expression.

“I think we have an erroneous tendency to project our own assumptions and our own familiarities in this debate on other capital cities. And we forget the fact that in most of these middle countries it’s really only in the last two years — thanks to the smartphone — that significant percentages of their populations are online,” Scott said. “These are new questions in a lot of these countries.”

In India, for instance, the percentage of residents using the Internet still numbers in the single digits, according to Scott. Yet that country, with the world’s second largest population and a thriving tech economy in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore, represents a hive of opportunities for U.S. tech firms. At the same time, it has exhibited some worrisome signs of heavy-handed oversight that could mute the enthusiasm with which businesses eye the market.

Google and Facebook ComplyJust this week, word surfaced that Google and Facebook had each taken down certain content on their domains in India to comply with a court ruling that upheld a lawsuit against a larger group of Internet companies seeking mechanisms to block sensitive religious material.

“That’s the kind of thing that we’re going to run up against all the time. The question is will they come out in the defense of an open Internet,” Boorstin said of his company’s situation in India.

He explained that he is hopeful that countries still developing the building blocks of their Internet policy will ultimately land on the side of openness. Even if they are not compelled by a philosophical allegiance to free expression, the pragmatic understanding that a cross-border flow of communication through social media and cloud computing technologies will be an essential piece of the 21st century economy should be motivation enough to loosen their Internet policies.

“They will recognize that without that free flow of information they’re going to stifle if not strangle their growth,” he said.

Kenneth Corbin is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who covers government and regulatory issues for CIO.com.

WASHINGTON — If you think China and Iran are where the fight for Internet freedom are centered, you may want to reconsider.

According to Bob Boorstin, Google’s Director of Corporate and Policy Communications, the crucial battles today are elsewhere.

“India is number one,” he said, when I asked which country was at the top of his list. Another is Russia, where he said the problem is the corrupt private individuals who may soon hold the Internet for ransom.

“You may soon be paying large fees to mysterious figures,” he predicted, for Internet access there.

Those countries, along with Indonesia, the Philippines and others described as worrisome, are issuing new laws and regulations that may limit free expression online and free access to information. Boorstin singled out two large, industrialized democracies for special attention.

“It has gone past the critical point in Korea; it gives me nightmares,” he said. “Brazil always worries me because there are a lot of prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves, and foreign companies are an easy target.”

Boorstin described all of these as the countries “in the middle.” He explained those are the countries between the very free – he named the U.S. and the Netherlands – and those at the other extreme, such as China and Iran.

“Which way are they going to go?” he asked. “That’s the question I’m focused on for the moment.”

Ben Scott, Policy Advisor for Innovation in Secretary of State Clinton’s office, was another participant at this morning’s forum sponsored by the Media Access Project. Scott agreed with Boorstin, mostly, but articulated a different set of criteria for the front lines of Internet freedom.

“Countries with rapid growth rates in Internet connectivity will deal with these questions more rapidly,” he said.

According to Scott, some of the most senior, educated people in foreign governments still do not understand the Internet.

“They see it as a problem that needs to be controlled,” said Scott, “not a net benefit to humanity.”

Asked what would drive the major developments on the Internet over the next 12-18 months, Boorstin and Scott both pointed to 3G- and 4G-equipped mobile telephones.

“The key development is smart phones,” said Scott. “More people are connecting to the Internet for the first time, and that will up the stakes. There will be a whole lot more money on the table.” And that money, he predicted, would be “pushing for business opportunities.”

“Whatever we see in the next 12-18 months will be in the mobile sphere,” agreed Boorstin. “Anybody who is looking at what’s next on the Internet will have to look toward the hand-held device and what it will allow people to do in everyday commerce, in organizing for political change, and free expression.”

Boorstin said he had good news, too, pointing to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, which “got the essence of the open Internet right.”

“Anyone interested in where the Internet should go,” he said, should look at the OECD, which last month issued a call to “promote and protect the global free flow of information.”

“After a long process,” he said, “they decided government should not be in charge. When was the last time 35 governments came together on anything and decided they should not be in charge?”

But what about China?

“The Chinese definition of innovation,” said Boorstin, “might be interpreted as stealing from other countries.”

According to a new report from Pew, the Facebook users who have the most friends, were tagged in the most photos, and received the most wall posts, were more likely than average users to attend political rallies and meetings offline. Additionally, those who used Facebook’s “groups” feature were also more likely to try to convince other Facebook friends to vote for certain candidates. (In general Facebook users were more likely than average Americans to vote in an election.)

It makes sense that an overall pattern of engagement extends beyond Facebook to the greater world. And this was true before Facebook too — people who are more social, more engaged, also have higher rates of civic participation.

But because Facebook is now where so many of those people — these highly engaged citizens — spend their time and communicate, the Facebook game is rising in importance for political campaigns. Voter contact — asking someone personally to vote — is thought to be the most effective way to get people to the polls, and it’s all the more so when the people making the contact are friends not strangers. Facebook, with its dense and active networks, offers campaigns a more efficient way of making those contacts. On Facebook, there is the potential to reach more people, whom they assume to be friends, without sending people into the streets to walk door to door.
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The Atlantic

In January 1912, the United States emerged from a two-year recession. Nineteen more followed-along with a century of phenomenal economic growth. Americans in real terms are 700% wealthier today.

In hindsight it seems obvious that emerging technologies circa 1912-electrification, telephony, the dawn of the automobile age, the invention of stainless steel and the radio amplifier-would foster such growth. Yet even knowledgeable contemporary observers failed to grasp their transformational power.

In January 2012, we sit again on the cusp of three grand technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the past century. All find their epicenters in America: big data, smart manufacturing and the wireless revolution.
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Wall Street Journal