Internet as internet – Government no longer a Stranger in a Strange Land

The online libertarian nirvana is no longer. As Adam says in his post introducing this blog, “Today the government has its hands all over the Internet. It’s difficult to name an area where lawmakers and regulators are not currently promulgating or considering rules and regulations for the high-technology and communications sectors.” So it is fitting that Wired News reported that it will no longer capitalize the “I” in internet, the “W” in web or “N” in net. (I’ve felt that this should be the case for years, but the elements of style dictated otherwise). Certainly the backbone of any new technology is the person using it – and through it all, people really don’t change all that much despite the change in technology. Our society has for too long thought of the “internet” as some distant land – and free market advocates have been able to ride the coattails of this perception when telling regulators to keep their “hands off.” As technology transcends socioeconomic barriers and becomes commoditized, this laissez faire argument carries less and less weight with regulators. This just makes our job advocating for market solutions harder, and means we need to focus on why the regulating forces of the market make for better outcomes than government regulation, not just by saying “don’t regulate a new technology” (implying its OK to regulate it once it’s all grown up) or “don’t regulate what you don’t know” (never stopped Congress before!). For better or worse, the “Internet” is no longer a strange land – and is little “i” internet for copy-editors and government regulators alike.

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