Is the Internet just another information and communications technology, or does it represent a new technological paradigm?
It represents a new social paradeigm. • With the growing commercialisation of the Internet, do you believe that some universal regulatory framework is required or do you believe that the Internet can continue to effectively govern itself? A universal regulatory framework is anathema to what the internet stands for. It won’t work because the net will fight back against any attempt at centralized control. The net is about freedom, not about 1984. • Is government intervention likely to help or hinder the progress of the Internet? Destroy it. The internet is about individuals bypassing the nation state and interacting one on one, or grouping together as they so chose to accomplish the ends they so chose. • Why do you think the US is so far ahead of countries such as the UK in terms of its utilisation of the Internet for commercial purposes? Because it is less infested with government. I could go on at extreme length on this topic, having lived there during the earliest days of the net. • S
