EU finalizing global Net policy

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EU finalizing global Net policy
By Reuters
Special to CNET NEWS.COM
January 15, 1998, 3:30 p.m. PT

BRUSSELS, Belgium--The European Commission is close to unveiling a plan to promote global cooperation on the legal and technical problems caused by the Internet explosion.

The initiative, which has some computer and communications companies on edge, is the brainchild of German Commissioner Martin Bangemann, who first called for an "international charter for global communications" in a speech last September. He argued that, with information increasingly circulating across borders, a new framework was needed to help governments and industry coordinate their approach to issues such as technical standards, data privacy, licenses, encryption, and illegal material.

The Commission, the European Union's Brussels-based executive, is expected to take the issue forward by adopting a policy paper within the next few weeks that can be discussed by EU telecommunications ministers on February 26, officials said.

Companies that stand to profit from the growth in electronic commerce are waiting nervously, saying they welcome the effort to promote more cooperation but worry that the proposal could lead to unwelcome government intervention.

"It's quite clear that, if we are looking at telecommunications, let alone the Internet, we have to look at global developments," Adrian Whitchurch, European regulatory manager for British Telecommunications, told Reuters.

"Having said that, we don't know yet what the charter would really be about," he said. "We would certainly be wary about any proposals aimed at adding an extra layer of global regulation over everything else."

BT is a member of the Global Internet Project (GIP), which unites about a dozen European, U.S., and Japanese software and telecommunications companies.

Several of its U.S. members--IBM, Electronic Data Systems, and Netscape Communications--have urged the Commission to propose an international conference with strong industry involvement, industry sources said.

They proposed specific language stating that "traditional, top-down governmental regulation has only a limited role to play in the context of the information society's global, borderless, and non-hierarchical nature."

A Commission official who is helping to draft the paper said the executive was sympathetic to the argument for an industry-led, market-driven approach.

"We're not trying to regulate or tell anybody what to do," he said. The Commission simply wanted to find the best way to address issues arising in the new electronic economy, he said.

"We're going to have certain problems, certain issues--for example, what would an electronic contract between two Web sites mean, legally speaking?" he said.

Various international bodies are already dealing with global communications issues, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the International Telecommunication Union.

But Bangemann said in his September speech there was a danger that different countries would sign up to different rules promulgated by different organizations.

He proposed an international charter that would be based on self-regulation, mutual recognition of licenses, and a minimum number of principles and rules.

The U.S. government, which has been at odds with the EU on issues such as data protection and encryption policy, has said it is open to Bangemann's initiative--depending on how it is defined.

President Clinton's Internet policy adviser, Ira Magaziner, told a news conference in Brussels last October that Washington was interested in "international understandings," but not in any new formal regulatory or inter-governmental body.