The Internet and International Regulatory Issues

The Internet has emerged as a dynamic new communications medium at an astounding pace in recent years. It enables the exchange of text, sound, video and images between millions of individuals from all around the world in a manner not possible via traditional media. But along with the growth of these services and the benefits they can provide for enhanced communication, entertainment and educational services, concerns have been raised around the world about the content of these services. The nature of these concerns often reflects the different cultural, religious and political values of the international community. The paper outlines the preliminary findings of a pilot study presently carried out by ABA. It considers the issues related to the content of on-line services, the impact of recent technical developments such as Platform for Content Selection (PICS) and content labeling. It compares regulatory responses in four countries and identifies areas of potential international co-operation.