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Most of you have probably seen the Declaration of Internet Freedom
that is going around; see <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.internetdeclaration.org/freedom">http://www.internetdeclaration.org/freedom</a>.<br>
<br>
It's not very good.<br>
<br>
For one thing, it's very high-level and vague, so that if you look
at the discussions, people are making all sorts of extrapolations
from it like "if we have the ability to save something on our hard
drives, we should have the right to freely copy and share it",
arguing about whether anonymity is or is not included, etc. It's
just pretty sloppy and unhelpful.<br>
<br>
For another, although a lot of groups have signed on to it, it seems
to have been developed by a fairly narrow segment of US-based groups
and entrepreneurs, and there was no serious attempt to reach out
ahead of its launch yesterday. Even a lot of people who are usually
in the loop hadn't heard about it until the last minute. At least
one major European digital rights group has decided not to sign on.<br>
<br>
Also, it contains no explicit mention of human rights, and the clear
emphasis is on the interests of the Internet industry rather than
users or non-user citizens/consumers (note the emphasis given, for
such a short document, to the principle "don’t punish innovators for
their users' actions"). Whilst I agree with the principle, it's not
the first thing I'd include.<br>
<br>
All that being said, these are just my views. Does the IGC want to
sign onto it?<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="color:black">Dr
Jeremy Malcolm<br>
Senior Policy Officer</span></b><br>
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Consumers
International</span><br>
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:gray">Kuala Lumpur Office for
Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia<br>
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599</span></p>
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