IP: AT&T condemns Internet policing

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

> From the London Evening Standard ("Business Diary"), 5 October 1995:




(Headline: AT&T condemns Internet policing)


"US Telecoms goliath AT&T has launched a stinging attack on American
and European politicians who are seeking to regulate the Internet.


 AT&T chief strategist Dick Bodman warned governments that
interference would deter business and `slow down a magnet of
creative activity by companies and individuals who are providing
a catalyst for huge changes within the communications industry'.


 Bodman, speaking at the Telecoms 95 Exhibition in Geneva,
referred to a variety of pressures building up at government
and intergovernmental level.


 These include moves to impose conditions on companies seeking
to provide Internet services, to specify common technology
standards that would prevent new competitors from entering
the market or coming up with new ideas, and to grant exclusive
franchises to some companies to operate on world networks
unfettered by competition.


 Bodman concedes that while pornography remains a real problem,
commercial and other security issues could be worked out through
co-operation between private firms.


 Even when it comes to such questions as pornography, Bodman
believes that the solution probably lies in allowing consumers
an option of "blanking out" what they do not want to see.


 `The Internet and related networks came about because people
found an unregulated way to swap information and come up with
new ideas without recourse to the authorities.  To that extent,
the Internet is an expression of the people,' he says."




I, personally, remain unconvinced that a longer term goal of
corporations such as AT&T is not to eat the RIPE and any similar
not-for-profit expressions of the people involved in the operation
of the Internet, but in the short term some joint approach with such
powerful potential allies on these regulation issues may be useful.





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