Key Insights: Expert Views on Threats to the Internet

Threat 3) These experts worry that commercial pressures will endanger the open structure of online life

• Experts fear increased monetization of Internet activities will hurt ways people receive information in the future
• Commercial challenges facing the Web: threat to net neutrality, copyright protections and patent law
• One expert—“Commercialization of the Internet, paradoxically, is the biggest challenge to the growth of the Internet”
• Too many institutional “players” on Web want to restrict/control what ordinary people can do online—Leah Lievrouw
• One expert—”I would like to see the Internet come to be regarded as a public utility, as broadcast spectrum was”
• Sharing (on Web) hindered by “ridiculous” 19th century copyright/patent laws. “Both will die away”—Marcel Bullinga
• One expert: Access to Internet “will just keep getting better as that is how governments/industry will make money”
• 70% of US internet users get information using search services on one company. “This needs to change.”—Marc Rotenberg

Threat 4) These experts worry about too much information

• Experts worry that people's attempts to cope with information overload will lead to constraints on content flows
• One expert: Biggest challenge on Web is the problem of “finding interesting and meaningful content when you want it”
• Prediction: An industry of “personal information trainers” will help people find interesting and useful information

Tags: Future of the Internet (Project) Net Neutrality

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