Memories
by Cil
There is so much about the Internet that we bloggers, and most of our readers, take for granted. On a daily basis, most of us:
- Power up
- Search around
- Ponder on
- Write some
More than once, the 366 days of 2012 brought the freedom of Internet use to a cliff’s edge. Those very things we do without thought very nearly came to a halt. So, ringing in 2013 free to do all the above, is more than a little thing. L. Gordon Crovitz, in a WSJ article, summed it up nicely.
When you spent time yesterday, last night, today, or not at all, contemplating the year just past, did you remember to say a little prayer for:
Uncensored Internet Use
When the UN’s International Telecommunications Union voted late one night, with 85 authoritarian regimes and 55 free countries, to allow the UN’s blessing to censor the Internet, monitor traffic and lock up online trouble-makers, the U.S walked out. Private companies run the tens of thousands of networks that make up the Internet and an open Internet is more valuable than continuing any UN agency.
Modest Capital Gains Taxes
Entrepreneurial activity was fueled by these low capital gains rates on profits made from what are at times speculative ventures. We’re all expecting higher tax rates next year leading to less capital to fund the next new innovation. Entrepreneurs will continue on, but the funding will be more scarce and the window of opportunity smaller. That’s a shame.
Federal Trade Commission Backed off Do-Not-Track Regulations
OK, so we have to give up on some of our privacy to use the sophisticated technology that gets us from point A to B and knows where we go on the Internet and on and on. It seems the Administration had to rein in the FTC on this one or give up one of the most powerful re-election tools ever discovered. Highly customized political pitches took 2012 politics to a whole new level of invasion. Poly-Sc classes will never be the same.
“You didn’t build that”
Our President reminded us that government’s limited role in fueling that invention, now known as the Internet, was funding private companies that built the world wide web. Thanks for reminding us, Pres, whether that was your intent or not.
So, here we are, bringing in 2013. It’s amazing how many personal freedoms are under attack daily.
May we remain free Internet users.
Tags: free Internet, FTC, Internet freedom, remembering 2012, UN, uncensored Internet
I think your President is being a little ungenerous to the public sector, @Cil.
The Internet grew out of DARPANet which was a 100% US military project to ensure that under a nuclear attack, some parts of government (and the military) would still work. That gave us the essential building blocks of a highly resilient design.
The World Wide Web which is based on the internet grew out of CERN which again is 100% funded by governments from around the world. The intention was to enable rapid dissemination of highly complex physics ideas and data and at this level, while there were various markup languages, these were incoherent and proprietory.
Then the public sector was also heavily involved via universities in the emerging open source Linux system which largely powers the internet.
Even the early infrastructure was built by publicly owned organisations in the late 80s/early 90s. So while the actual infrastructure today is built and operated by private companies, the essential functionality was proven as was the clear need.
For private corporations, on the one hand, IBM jumped into Linux very early on and have contributed but Microsoft, then the largest company in the world. was very late at the party.
Anyway the issue really is that all this is currently free and relatively uncensored and that’s the way it should be. While we don’t want the internet to be used for crime, terrorism, paedophilia etc, these are illegal activities that should be shut down anyway. It is important to follow Voltaire in this and defend free thought and speech.