PARIS – The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a new framework that it says will help to promote a more transparent and open Internet.
The Communiqué on Principles for Internet Policy-Making was released Wednesday after two days of meetings between OECD governments and other stakeholders in Paris. The new principles aim to advance the debate on Internet governance by highlighting the benefits that “light-touch, flexible regulation has brought in driving innovation and economic growth”.
“The Internet has achieved global interconnection without the development of any international regulatory regime”, reads the report. “The development of such a formal regulatory regime could risk undermining its growth.”
Participants also agreed that the Internet economy’s success depends upon the free flow of information, which should be promoted and protected, and that governments must improve their efforts to protect personal data, the freedom of expression, and other fundamental rights on-line. They also stressed that countries must develop and promote high-speed broadband access to reap the full benefits of an Internet economy, and that governments have a key role to play in spurring demand for broadband, particularly in education, health, energy distribution and transport.
