An outstanding line-up of contributors explore the regulation of the internet from an interdisciplinary perspective. In-depth coverage of this controversial area such as international political economy, law, politics, economics, sociology and internet regulation. Regulating the Global Information Society covers the differences between both US and UK approaches to regulation and establishes where policy is being made that will influence the future direction of the global information society, from commercial, democratic and middle-ground perspectives.
This work explores the regulation of the Internet from an interdisciplinary perspective. In-depth coverage includes areas such as international political economy, law, politics, economics and sociology.
For every opportunity presented by the information age, there is an opening to invade the privacy and threaten the security of the nation, U.S. businesses, and citizens in their private lives. The more information that is transmitted in computer-readable form, the more vulnerable we become to automated spying. It's been estimated that some 10 billion words of computer-readable data can be searched for as little as $1. Rival companies can glean proprietary secrets . . . anti-U.S. terrorists can research targets . . . network hackers can do anything from charging purchases on someone else's credit card to accessing military installations. With patience and persistence, numerous pieces of data can be assembled into a revealing mosaic. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society addresses the urgent need for a strong national policy on cryptography that promotes and encourages the widespread use of this powerful tool for protecting of the information interests of individuals, businesses, and the nation as a whole, while respecting legitimate national needs of law enforcement and intelligence for national security and foreign policy purposes. This book presents a comprehensive examination of cryptographyâ€"the representation of messages in codeâ€"and its transformation from a national security tool to a key component of the global information superhighway. The committee enlarges the scope of policy options and offers specific conclusions and recommendations for decision makers. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society explores how all of us are affected by information security issues: private companies and businesses; law enforcement and other agencies; people in their private lives. This volume takes a realistic look at what cryptography can and cannot do and how its development has been shaped by the forces of supply and demand. How can a business ensure that employees use encryption to protect proprietary data but not to conceal illegal actions? Is encryption of voice traffic a serious threat to legitimate law enforcement wiretaps? What is the systemic threat to the nation's information infrastructure? These and other thought-provoking questions are explored. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society provides a detailed review of the Escrowed Encryption Standard (known informally as the Clipper chip proposal), a federal cryptography standard for telephony promulgated in 1994 that raised nationwide controversy over its "Big Brother" implications. The committee examines the strategy of export control over cryptography: although this tool has been used for years in support of national security, it is increasingly criticized by the vendors who are subject to federal export regulation. The book also examines other less well known but nevertheless critical issues in national cryptography policy such as digital telephony and the interplay between international and national issues. The themes of Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society are illustrated throughout with many examplesâ€"some alarming and all instructiveâ€"from the worlds of government and business as well as the international network of hackers. This book will be of critical importance to everyone concerned about electronic security: policymakers, regulators, attorneys, security officials, law enforcement agents, business leaders, information managers, program developers, privacy advocates, and Internet users.
Today, information and the technologies that store and disseminate it are producing deep-rooted and widespread changes in society - changes of the same magnitude as those that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. The purpose of this book is to give a complete picture of the information society by examining in detail the social, economic, political, and cultural roles of information and information technology. This book is effectively a second edition of the author's classic The Information Society. In it, the author illustrates the major trends in and inter-relationships between information, information and communication technologies, and the global economy and society. In tracing the direction of information-based change he reveals the implications for ordinary citizens, for the quality of everyday life, for economic and social activity, and examines the prospects of nations and trading blocs. This book provides a new way of looking at society, one that is essential for understanding social and economic structures and processes in the information age.
The case for a smarter “prosumer law” approach to Internet regulation that would better protect online innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights. Internet use has become ubiquitous in the past two decades, but governments, legislators, and their regulatory agencies have struggled to keep up with the rapidly changing Internet technologies and uses. In this groundbreaking collaboration, regulatory lawyer Christopher Marsden and computer scientist Ian Brown analyze the regulatory shaping of “code”—the technological environment of the Internet—to achieve more economically efficient and socially just regulation. They examine five “hard cases” that illustrate the regulatory crisis: privacy and data protection; copyright and creativity incentives; censorship; social networks and user-generated content; and net neutrality. The authors describe the increasing “multistakeholderization” of Internet governance, in which user groups argue for representation in the closed business-government dialogue, seeking to bring in both rights-based and technologically expert perspectives. Brown and Marsden draw out lessons for better future regulation from the regulatory and interoperability failures illustrated by the five cases. They conclude that governments, users, and better functioning markets need a smarter “prosumer law” approach. Prosumer law would be designed to enhance the competitive production of public goods, including innovation, public safety, and fundamental democratic rights.
From the mid-1990s onwards concerns regarding the exposure of children to harmful content in the increasingly digital media environment intensified. Soon thereafter policy makers across Europe realised that alternative regulatory instruments, such as self- and co-regulation, might be more appropriate than traditional legislation to address this matter of public interest. Taking the complex and delicate nature of protecting minors into account, this book provides an in-depth legal analysis of the alternative regulatory instruments that can be used to regulate content in the digital era, with particular attention to the protection of fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, privacy and procedural guarantees, internal market regulation, competition rules, and implementation requirements.
Experts analyze the global governance of electronic networks, emphasizing international power dynamics and the concerns of nondominant actors. The burgeoning use and transformative impact of global electronic networks are widely recognized to be defining features of contemporary world affairs. Less often noted has been the increasing importance of global governance arrangements in managing the many issues raised in such networks. This volume helps fill the gap by assessing some of the key international institutions pertaining to global telecommunications regulation and standardization, radio frequency spectrum, satellite systems, trade in services, electronic commerce, intellectual property, traditional mass media and Internet content, Internet names and numbers, cybercrime, privacy protection, and development. Eschewing technocratic approaches, the contributors offer empirically rich studies of the international power dynamics shaping these institutions. They devote particular attention to the roles and concerns of nondominant stakeholders, such as developing countries and civil society, and find that global governance often reinforces wider power disparities between and within nation-states. But at the same time, the contributors note, governance arrangements often provide nondominant stakeholders with the policy space needed to advance their interests more effectively. Each chapter concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the promotion of an open, dynamic, and more equitable networld order. Contributors Peng Hwa Ang, Jonathan D. Aronson, Byung-il Choi, Tracy Cohen, Peter F. Cowhey, William J. Drake, Henry Farrell, Rob Frieden, Alison Gillwald, Boutheina Guermazi, Cees J. Hamelink, Ian Hosein, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Don MacLean, Christopher May, Milton Mueller, John Richards, David Souter, Ernest Wilson III, Jisuk Woo
In the first edition of Theories of the Information Society Frank Webster set out to make sense of the information explosion, taking a sceptical look at what thinkers mean when they refer to the information society, and critically examining all the major post-war theories and approaches to informational development.
As the distributed architecture underpinning the initial Bitcoin anarcho-capitalist, libertarian project, 'blockchain' entered wider public imagination and vocabulary only very recently. Yet in a short space of time it has become more mainstream and synonymous with a spectacular variety of commercial and civic 'problem'/'solution' concepts and ideals. From commodity provenance, to electoral fraud prevention, to a wholesale decentralisation of power and the banishing of the exploitative practices of 'middlemen', blockchain stakeholders are nothing short of evangelical in their belief that it is a force for good. For these reasons and more the technology has captured the attention of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, global corporations and governments the world over. Blockchain may indeed offer a unique technical opportunity to change cultures of transparency and trust within cyberspace, and as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘disruptive’ has the potential to shift global socioeconomic and political conventions. But as a yet largely unregulated, solutionist-driven phenomenon, blockchain exists squarely within the boundaries of capitalist logic and reason, fast becoming central to the business models of many sources of financial and political power the technology was specifically designed to undo, and increasingly allied to neoliberal strategies with scant regard for collective, political or democratic accountability in the public interest. Regulating Blockchain casts a critical eye over the technology, its ‘ecosystem’ of stakeholders, and offers a challenge to the prevailing discourse proclaiming it to be the great techno-social enabler of our times.
Internet TV is the quintessential digital convergence medium, linking television, telecommunications, the Internet, computer applications, games, and more. Soon, venturing beyond the convenience of viewer choice and control, Internet TV will enable and encourage new types of entertainment, education, and games that take advantage of the Internet's interactive capabilities. What Internet TV is today and can be in the future forms the context for this book. Arising from collaboration between the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI) and the European Institute for the Media (EIM), this volume investigates the advent of widely available individual broadband Internet communications and their impact on the development of Internet TV. Editors Eli Noam, Jo Groebel, and Darcy Gerbarg have collected seminal papers by leaders from the U.S. and European media and technology industries that offer a critical look at the impact of interactivity on television content, and address the need for media organizations to create interactive programming in this untapped realm with unclear consumer interest and desires. Each section of the volume fleshes out key issues and concepts of television and the Internet: *Part I, Infrastructure Implications of Internet TV, discusses questions about the required network capacity for various quality grades to deliver individualized broadband to homes. *Part II, Network Business Models and Strategies, addresses the business challenges of making Internet TV a financial success. *Part III, Policy, examines policy issues, including copyright and regulation. *Part IV, Content and Culture, reviews available content, those creating it, and how consumers view Internet TV content. *Part V, Future Impacts, considers future global prospects for Internet TV content creation and distribution. Internet Television is an essential resource for professionals and scholars in new technology and media studies, media policy, telecommunication, broadcasting, and related areas. It is also appropriate for graduate seminars in telecommunications, media and new technologies, and broadcasting and the Internet.
