Growing Internet Prowess

– Madan Lal Sharma, Freelance researcher based in Delhi, can be reached at [email protected]

The Internet freedom is in danger as US and some other countries are contemplating measures to exert control over this most powerful medium of expression and information today. This control is being manipulated through the UN which is in violation of very letter and spirit of the provisions of the UN Charter.

Many forms of media exist apart from television, but they do not generate news. The Internet has now become a source of news, and it is being provided by eyewitnesses and victims of accidents and government abuse, not professional journalists. The Internet has become the leading opposition force. The use of Internet is gaining momentum throughout the globe. There has been phenomenonal growth in Internet users between 2000 and 2009 worldwide. As on 31 December 2000, the total number of Internet users stood at 360 million and by September 2009, this number had grown to 1,733 million people throughout the globe thereby registering 380 per cent growth. The world Internet usage statistics are given Table 1 below:

Table-1 World Internet Usage

WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS
Asia Region	Population (2009 Est.)	Internet users Dec 31,2000	Internet Users (Latest Data)	Penetration (% Population)	User Growth (2000-2009)	Users % of Table
Africa	991,002,342	4,514,400	67,371,700	6.8%	1,392.4%	3.9
Asia only	3,808,070503	114,304,000	738,257,230	19.4%	545.9%	42.6%
Europe	803,850,858	105,096,093	418,029,796	55.0%	297.8%	24.1%
Middle East	202,687,005	3,284,800	77,425,046	28.3%	1,648.3%	3.3%
North America	340,831,831	108,096,800	252,908,000	74.2%	134.0%	14.6%
Latin America/Caribbean	586,662,468	18,068,919	179,031,479	30.5%	890.8%	10.3%
Oceania/Australia	34,700,201	7,620,480	20,970,490	60.4%	175.2%	1.2%
WORLD TOTAL	6,767,805,208	360,985,492	1,733,993,741	25.6%	380.3%	100.0%

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Note: Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for September 30, 2009.

It is observed from Table-1 that in the Africa region, the Internet user growth has been 1,392 per cent between 2000 and 2009. The Asian region recorded a growth of 546 per cent during this period. The Internet user growth in Europe was 297 per cent whereas in the Middle East this growth was 1,648 per cent for the same period. The region of North America registered 134 per cent growth in Internet users between 2000 and 2009 while Latin American and Caribbean countries recorded 890 per cent growth during the same period. Oceania/Australia region had a growth of 175 per cent in Internet users for the same period. In other words, there has been a phenomenal growth in Internet users throughout the world in recent years.

Internet Usage in India

The growth of Internet usage in India has been a bit slow as compared to China or other developed countries. The growth of Internet usage between 1998 and 2007 is shown in Table-2.

Table-2 Growth of Internet Usage in India
1998-2007

YEAR	Users	Population	% Pen.	Usage Source
1998	1,400,000	1,094,870,677	0.1 %	ITU
1999	2,800,000	1,094,870,677	0.3 %	ITU
2000	5,500,000	1,094,870,677	0.5 %	ITU
2001	7,000,000	1,094,870,677	0.7 %	ITU
2002	16,500,000	1,094,870,677	1.6 %	ITU
2003	22,500,000	1,094,870,677	2.1 %	ITU
2004	39,200,000	1,094,870,677	3.6 %	C.I. Almanac
2005	50,600,000	1,112,225,812	4.5 %	C.I. Almanac
2006	40,000,000	1,112,225,812	3.6 %	IAMAI
2007	42,000,000	1,129,667,528	3.7 %	IWS

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/in.htm

It is revealed from Table -2 that in 1998 there were 1.4 million Internet users comprising 0.1 per cent of the total population. By 2000, the number of Internet users in India grew to 5.5 million which accounted for 0.5 per cent of the total population. By 2003, the number of Internet users in India had reached to 22.5 million and it constituted 2.1 per cent of the total population. The number of Internet users in India grew to 50.6 million in 2005, according to C.I. Almanac figures. The figure for Internet users in India in 2007, as provided by IWS, shows 42 million Internet users which form 3.7 per cent of the total population.

Internet vs Television

Recent research surveys in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region show that Internet users spend more time surfing web than watching TV. Internet users in the MENA region spend more time surfing the web than they do watching television, prompting analysts to predict a rise in spending on online advertising. An online survey of media consumption habits found 88 per cent of respondents browse the internet daily, while only 70 per cent of those questioned said they watched TV every day of the week. Just 25 per cent of the respondents said they watched TV for more than three hours a day, compared with the 51 per cent who said they spent more than three hours a day surfing the web.
According to Brendon Ogilvy, the vice president of digital insights at Effective Measure, the audience measurement company that carried out the research, MENA region’s internet users “have a preference to going online as opposed to [watching] television.”
Ian Sanders, the lead partner for telecommunications, media and technology at the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers Middle East, said while internet penetration was relatively low in the region, those who were online tended to be “quite active.” According to Sanders, “The generation that’s spending a lot of time online and on social-networking sites is tending to spend less time watching TV. And if they want to watch TV, they do so via non-linear sites like YouTube. This is an indication of what the future holds. You’ll see online ad spend increasing.”1

Effective Measure questioned 2,587 MENA residents, most of whom were male graduates under the age of 30 who were holding skilled jobs. About 48 per cent of the respondents lived in Egypt and 38 per cent in the GCC. MENA has relatively low levels of broadband penetration and the survey is representative only of consumers who already have access to the internet.

Saudi Arabia, the most populous country in the Gulf, had an internet penetration rate of 38.1 per cent at the end of 2009, figures from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) show. The ITU also found Egypt had a penetration rate of just 20 per cent. By comparison, developed countries such as the UK and Canada have internet penetration rates of 83.5 per cent and 78.1 per cent respectively.
While the Effective Measure survey is skewed towards a young, relatively wealthy segment of the population with good knowledge of the internet, it throws light on how media consumption habits in the region could change as more residents have access to the internet.

Open or Restricted Access

In the wake of revelations that the US military network was compromised in 2008, and that US digital interests are under a relative constant threat of attack, the Pentagon is establishing new cyber security initiatives to protect the Internet. The Pentagon strategy–which is part digital NATO, part digital civil defense, and part Big Brother–may ruffle some feathers and raise concerns that the US Internet is becoming a military police state.

The mission of the United States Department of Defense is to provide military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of the nation. The scope of that mission includes emerging threats and the need to deter cyber war and protect the digital security of the nation as well. To fulfill that mission in an increasingly connected world, and with a rising threat of digital attack, the Pentagon wants to expand its sphere of influence.

The United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, William J. Lynn III, describes a 2008 incident which compromised military computer systems and classified information in an article in Foreign Affair: “It began when an infected flash drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a base in the Middle East. The flash drive’s malicious computer code, placed there by a foreign intelligence agency, uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. Central Command.”2

Lynn goes on to say “That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control. It was a network administrator’s worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary.”

Lynn notes that more than 100 US enemies and foreign intelligence organizations are hard at work trying to find holes to hack into the digital infrastructure of the United States. That digital infrastructure extends beyond the .MIL, or even the .GOV domains, though–as many private interests also represent vital parts of the nation’s critical infrastructure.
Americans–and American businesses–expect the government, and more specifically the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, to defend national security and ensure freedoms and liberties. When the objective of national security collides with freedom and liberty, it creates friction.

Americans expect both security and freedom. It was understandable that the United States government would monitor communications to identify potential terrorist threats in the wake of the attack on 9/11, but many citizens were outraged to learn that the Bush administration had authorized warrantless wiretapping of the entire nation by the NSA.
Lynn explains “Cyberattacks offer a means for potential adversaries to overcome overwhelming U.S. advantages in conventional military power and to do so in ways that are instantaneous and exceedingly hard to trace. Such attacks may not cause the mass casualties of a nuclear strike, but they could paralyze U.S. society all the same. In the long run, hackers’ systematic penetration of U.S. universities and businesses could rob the United States of its intellectual property and competitive edge in the global economy.”3
The reality is that many private business interests are an integral part of the critical infrastructure that the United States relies on for defense, commerce, communications, and other vital interests. The government should not control those interests, but the Pentagon has a vested interest in monitoring the digital security of servers and networks within those interests in order to fulfill its mission.

Rather than taking either extreme–military spying on everything in the interest of national security or spying on nothing to preserve freedom and liberty–an effective defense of US digital interests is best served by public and private sector interests working cooperatively for the greater good. Businesses should not accept frivolous government monitoring, but should understand that protecting America requires a balance between liberty and security.

Role for Developing Countries

While addressing the opening session of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 14 September 2010, Neelie Kroes, Digital Agenda Commissioner said: “Public authorities across the world must now be able, on an equal footing, to effectively carry out their roles and responsibilities when international public policy issues are at stake.” Asserting that since emerging economies will soon have more web users than the EU and US combined, Kroes said that Internet governance should also be extended to the developing world. He welcomed the fact that ICANN, the organisation coordinating Internet IP addresses, was now reviewing its working methods to include more representatives from the developing world in ‘advisory committees’.4

Currently, ICANN’s committee members are unelected and, despite being a non-governmental body, representatives have operated under a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with the US and are required to work in English.5 A new agreement between the US and ICANN reached in October last year, hailed as proof of the organisation “going global” by its CEO Rod Beckstrom, was designed to see international representatives sit on review panels alongside with the US. Kroes’ calls for a more multilateral approach to Internet governance came at the IGF meeting, where 115 countries were represented.

The opening up of competition between access providers can be seen as offering the best possibility for avoiding barriers to the flow of information online, however. China had earlier this year ordered Internet search engine Google to censor ‘sensitive searches’ from its website, raising questions over the extent to which domain control should be handed over to Beijing.

At the IGF meeting at Vilnius, Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expressed his concern and worry about efforts by some governments to constrain the independence of the Internet at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session. ICANN is a nonprofit corporation charged with regulating and managing the Domain Name System under which Internet Protocol addresses and registration of top-level domains (such as .org and .com) are assigned. “Governance” of the medium has been historically minimal and led by non-governmental entities and overseen by the U.S. government, which has exercised a light regulatory touch. This freedom allowed the Internet to grow and develop at a truly remarkable pace.

However, the United Nations has sought for some time to acquire authority over ICANN and the Internet, at the behest of a number of countries who wish to tax or regulate it. In 2009, the Obama administration decided to withdraw U.S. oversight and protection of ICANN on the justification that ICANN and the Internet had become too important internationally to be overseen by any one nation and reached agreement to affirm ICANN as “independent” and “not controlled by any one entity.”6

Unfortunately, that decision opened the door to U.N. interference on the basis that all nations have a stake in the medium. The IGF was created to “support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)” to pursue 12 goals which include strengthening and enhancing “the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, particularly those from developing countries” and finding “solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet” and, of course, “proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world” and rallying critical resources for that purpose.

While these goals are not inherently objectionable, many U.N. member states see them as opportunities for oversight by government of the internet, censorship, and transfer of resources from developed to developing countries.

In his speech at IGF meeting on 14 September 2010, Beckstrom clearly expressed concern over the possibility of U.N. governance of the Internet:
“The Internet has the power to transform the human experience. It enables communication on an unprecedented scale and is woven into billions of lives around the world. Its openness, its inclusiveness, its relative lack of regulation make it a fertile field for innovation and competition, an engine for much needed economic growth. Why mention inclusiveness? Because everyone using the Internet should and must have a voice in its governance.

If governance were to become the exclusive province of nation states or captured by any other interests, we would lose the foundation of the Internet’s long-term potential and transformative value…Some want to bring Internet governance into the framework of intergovernmental organizations exclusively. What would that mean? Most Internet users – businesses, service providers, non-profits, consumers – would be shut out of the governance debate….
Together we can ensure that the Internet’s future rests in the hands of its most important constituency: the people.”7

Conclusion
Internet has emerged as the most influential and powerful medium of expression and information. From social networking to defence matters and technical usage, the prowess of this emerging medium is extrordinary. The government regulatory mechanisms will stiffle the creativity and intellectual freedom. Besides, granting the U.N. control and regulatory oversight of ICANN and the Internet would empower non-democratic countries that oppose the right to free speech such as China and grasping, anti-market impulses like those of the European Union to impose their policy, regulatory and political priorities on what has been a very successful free medium.
Notes