Everybody Wants to Rule the World…Wide Web
By Dave Wieneke on Jul 30, 2010 in Featured, Politics, Public policy | comments(0)
Recently, numerous political groups have been quite up front about their intent to exert authority over different parts of the online world. It seems everybody want to rule the Web.
- Dept of Justice Moves to Regulate Web Through Accessibility Standards.
- FCC Proposes to Regulate Web Access via Broadband, Claims Its Part of Regulating Telcos.
- Commerce Dept to Set Rules to Protect Web Trust: child protection, copyright, security, e-comm, and ICANN.
- The United Nations ITU (Telecom Treaties) Seeks to Regulate the Web. WSJ calls this a threat to Net freedom.
- Florida claims worldwide jurisdiction on Web #defamation about Florida or its residents.
- Utah seeks to regulate the use of trademarks in domain names.
- And finally: NYTimes Calls for Someone (anyone) to Regulate Google’s Search Algorithm.
The set of government initiatives to control the web appears far more organized and comprehensive than the users and industry groups these regulations would effect. In short, there’s a boom in government’s aspiration to run the Web. And that boom feels like a power grab to claim turf that today mostly belongs to individuals.

This is a story about Eric and Jack, who both blog about the law with an eye on topics that are enlightening, ennobling, or at least entertaining.

Nobody Has Noticed, But Regulation is Nearer Than You Might Imagine
Law and health care practices are required to protect personally identifiable information (PII). However, in many cases they are encouraged to circulate so-called anonymous data. It turns out the distinction between the anonymous and the personally identifiable isn’t all that real.