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Consumer
Relations
Consumers
and Governments confront major issues within the Global Internet framework.
These issues include Spam, Security, Privacy, Governance and most
importantly availability of the World Wide Web.
The
industrialized countries such as the United
States, Canada, Europe and Japan dominate Internet standards and Domain
Name Registration. The
U.S. retains control over key aspects of the Internet's domain name and
addressing structure through agreements with ICANN and VeriSign, which run
the master dot COM and NET databases. Those agreements carried over from
the time when the US developed the Internet.
The Internet represents a vital
international public utility which effects the interests of all stakeholders
including those other than the industrialized countries. Greater
diversification will result in greater overall value the global economy.
Representatives of Internet technical bodies, such as the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sympathize with diversification but claim
that too much government regulation exists.
Most
of the non industrialized world lives in a digital divide from lack of
resources to pump prime their economies. More foreign aid from
Governments and investments from Corporations can provide vital resources to
reverse this trend.
One alternative identified by the UN as far back as 1999 proposed taxing all
eMail messages to pay for development aid. Recent proposals include
taxes on each eMail sent to that could also eliminate bulk eMail Marketing. The need
exists to ensure that the Internet stays true to the purpose for providing a
universal network on a global basis.
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