The European Union and the Internet Prof. dr. W. De Backer (Walter.DeBacker@rug.ac.be) University of Ghent, honorary director-general of the European Commission 39th Internet Engineering Task Force Conference Munich 14 August 1997 Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. My task this afternoon is to review with you the interests and the activities of the European Union related to the Internet. I am speaking on behalf of the European Commission. I hope that I will be able to give you some new information, and - if need be - to contribute to a closer dialogue between the Internet technical community, particularly in Europe, and the policy and research activities sponsored by the Union. Thus the overview of our interests refers both to administrative and regulatory considerations and to technological considerations. * Administrative and regulatory: the domain name system, intellectual property and content issues. * Technological: infrastructure and applications. The European Commission has quite a track record in the area of telecommunications policy and that is what many of you probably identify the Commission with. But we know that the Internet is not telecommunications - even though a large proportion of it operates through telecommunications connections. The Internet is very different, in its architecture, its technical standards, and in its range of services. We recognise these differences, but we are also aware of issues which are common to the Internet and to telecommunications: bandwidth, identification and directories, interoperability, competition. Furthermore, the Commission fully recognises and supports the desirability of organising the Internet on the basis of a flexible and consensual system of self-regulation by the Internet community itself. The Internet is a success story, in terms of its overall growth, in terms of new capabilities and services - particularly the World Wide Web - and in terms of its economy. Self-regulation based on consensus should mean just that, and it is increasingly important that the objective be realised globally. But at the same time there are areas where self-regulation of the Internet impinges on established areas of public policy - and law. The Internet does not operate in a legal and political vacuum. On the contrary, the Internet and all its users are part of national and international society at large. In principle and in practice, many existing rules apply, and the challenge to the policy makers and to those with authority over the self regulatory system is how to reconcile the technology and practice of the Internet with the rules and regulations of society at large. I will illustrate this challenge with three current examples, which is not to say that there may not be other such cases in the future. The Domain Name System For at least the past year, the future organisation of the Internet DNS has been intensively debated, without resolution today. A year is a long, long time in the he history of the Internet, and that in itself illustrates the depth of this problem. I am sure that I don't need to go into details here: the two parallel systems of generic and national Top Level Domains; the management of the *dot* by IANA; congestion in the .COM domain; the transition from the existing US government contracts towards a self-supporting administration . . . these themes have fed a wide debate, particularly in the United States, and more recently in Europe. The importance of resolving some of these issues has been reinforced by forecasts and reports of technical problems in the Internet arising either from the light infrastructure of the DNS and Root Server system and from the commercial tensions which are emerging between different groups of Internet actors. At the same time that the public authorities in Europe and in the United States are quite prepared to have a "hands off" approach to Internet management, it is equally true that the Internet is becoming an indispensable infrastructure for a significant part of our economy and society and that disputes within the Internet environment will in the last resort land in the area of public regulation or law. I think it is afar to say that the Commission is happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the game, but not as a spectator - rather as an alternate player, should the need arise. By contrast, the US Administration is a player. We understand that they would like to get off the pitch, and we fully respect that decision, but it is important to the Commission that the regime of private self regulation that the US hands over to next year represents a globally representative and acceptable consensus system. What precisely does Europe want? First, a stable reliable transition to a technically and politically viable alternative. In Europe we are prepared to take the time it takes to achieve this. Most of us in Europe would be prepared to put up with the shortcomings of the present system for a while longer if that would lead to a real consensus on an alternative system. Secondly a system of governance where international participation and representation is assured on an equitable basis. The Commission has asked the Internet Policy Oversight Committee to reformulate its proposals for the representation of European and other regional interests in this respect. We are open to suggestions as to how best this could be done - or course Europe is not the only part of the world which is involved. One possibility would be to give the Internet policy bodies a regional structure, representing national and generic Registrars. Thirdly, the legal basis of the proposed system must be clear and agreed. At present it appears that the ITU will have a key role but how this will evolve in the future remains to be seen. The World Intellectual Property Organisation has been proposed to organise the dispute resolution procedure for Trademark aspects of the Internet. This leads me to the second aspect of regulatory policy: the protection of Intellectual Property. There are several aspects: trademarks, patents, and copyrights. Intellectual Property Rights Specifically, about trademarks, the allocation of domain names must take into account established rights to trademarks. I gather that there have been a limited number of problems in this area but that a few cases have had a rather high profile. The Commission would support the establishment of pre-registration procedures to reduce the number of disputes and the creation of world-wide trademark databases. These issues are being studied by a task force in the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The Commission and the Member States Industrial Property offices are participating actively in this work. More generally, the Internet is proving to be the principal global medium where the long-standing debate over copyright in electronic communications is being played out. Here again, the Commission has been for many years a proponent of up-dating copyright laws to take account of new technologies. Earlier this year a Communication was published announcing new legislative proposals addressing, notably the harmonisation of authors' reproduction rights and I understand that a draft directive may be proposed in the autumn. Meanwhile, the Commission fully supports the ratification and implementation of the December 1996 WIPO Treaties on copyright and neighbouring rights, which also address the applicability of copyright in the digital media. Internet Content Issues The Internet has also become a powerful influence in the social, educational and cultural fields, empowering citizens and educators, lowering the barriers to the creation and distribution of content and offering much wider access to sources of digital information. However the Internet can also carry potentially harmful of illegal content and be misused. Although this is essentially a limited problem, these aspects are too important to be ignored and have attracted significant political attention in recent months. The Commission has addressed the issue through a Communication to the Council and Parliament about Harmful and illegal content and a consultative Green Paper on the Protection of Minors. The Communication analyses the technical aspects of monitoring and filtering content on the Internet and points out that in the Union it is the Member States' responsibility to ensure the application of existing laws. Furthermore the Commission has proposed: * strengthened cooperation between Member States in enforcing existing laws; * encouraging self-regulation among service providers on access to illegal material; * recommendations encouraging use of filtering software and rating systems in Europe; * consideration of an international convention on harmful and illegal content. The Commission has also set up a web site about technical legal and other solutions to these problems. The Green Paper took a longer term view of the protection of minors and human dignity in the audio visual sector and addressed a number of question to interested parties. The Commission is considering the outcome of these consultations. The Internet and the Research Community The Internet originated in the Research Community, and although there has of course been massive private and commercial development since those days, the Research Community continues to be a major priority for Internet policies in the European Union. Let us look briefly at the infrastructure aspects, current R&D priorities and longer term objectives. Infrastructure: As part of the European strategy for Trans European Networks, the Commission is supporting the TEN-34 project which will deploy high capacity facilities, up to 34 megabits per second, to allow the national research networks in Europe to be exploited globally and to maintain the competitiveness of :European research. The phased roll out of this project will address both the requirements for greater capacity and to support multimedia applications. A number of projects supported through the telecommunications and telematics programmes will increasingly be Internet based, and more generally the World Wide Web Consortium which is also supported by the European Commission will promote the full realisation of the Web's potential. The WWW consortium provides a repository of information for developers and users, especially about specifications and standards and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate the use of new technology on the Web. Looking towards the near future, many of you will be aware that the Commission is currently preparing its proposals for the Fifth R&D Framework Programmes, including the information and communications technology component. in this context, the priority for advanced R&D networking is expected to be maintained. A pan European network is required, capable of supporting all research needs and of keeping pace with international developments. the fist objective will be to ensure that European industrial and academic collaborative research and education benefits from broadband capabilities. The capacity of European interconnection should match the efforts made within the Member States to improve national facilities. The second objective is to create the critical mass in Europe for future broadband technologies by creating Europe-wide test beds. We will aim at upgrading existing 34 megabit capacity to 622 megabits by the year 2000 and working towards gigabit capacity in the foreseeable future. The Commission will seek to ensure that the R&D community in Europe is able to use state of the art Internet based applications across the whole range of research applications involving all the specific programmes in all sectors of research. More generally, the Commission, in its preparations for the information technology and communications programme in the Fifth Framework Programme, wishes to see a stronger link between European research and future developments in the Internet, and enhanced European participation in the work of the IETF. Electronic Commerce Why has the Internet become so important to the public authorities in Europe and in the United States, all of a sudden? I think it is summed up in a work: electronic commerce. The great hope has long been that information technology would contribute to economic growth, efficiency and competitiveness and finally to job creation. For many years developments in these beneficial directions were questionable. Separate developments in telecommunications, computing and the media are finally coming together in the potential of the Internet, and industry at large is finally sensing a possibility for doing business electronically not only with their suppliers and contractors (electronic data interchange has been around for quite a log time, after all) but with the final customer, his or herself. You will not be surprised that earlier this year both the Commission and the US Administration published major policy papers on electronic commerce within weeks of each other and that European Ministers met in Bonn in early July to consider the implications of electronic commerce over a wide range of policy areas. Electronic commerce refers to any activity which involves enterprises interacting and doing business with customers, with each other or with administrations by electronic means. It includes electronic ordering of goods and services, on line ordering and payment, electronic funds transfer and trading, direct marketing and many other potential electronic economic services. The global electronic commerce market is growing extremely fast and Internet Commerce could be worth 200 billion Euros by the year 2000. World wide 86 million people were connected to the Internet by the end of 1996 and by 2000 this is expected to reach 250 million individuals. The Commission's policy focuses on four objectives: * reliable and affordable infrastructure; * a favourable regulatory framework, including a neutral tax environment; * a favourable business environment, including meeting the training and skills requirements for this new industry; * European coordination in relevant international fora and groups for data protection, data security, taxation and technical standards. These broad objectives were given a push in the right direction through the Bonn Ministerial Declaration of 8 July 1997 which resulted in a broad consensus between Ministers, industry and users on the key issues and solutions for the development of Global Information Networks, including the general principle of maximum resort to voluntary industry self-regulation. For example, Ministers stressed that the rules on responsibility for content should be based on common principles and that network operators and access providers should, in general, not be responsible for content. They also agreed to work towards global principles on the free flow of information whilst protecting fundamental rights to privacy and personal and business data. Thus the conference considered that data security is required for the development of the Information society and that the availability of strong encryption technology is necessary for the successful development of electronic commerce, within the limits of applicable law for cryptographic products. * * * * In conclusion, Mr Chairman, I hope I have been able to give your conference an useful overview of the Commission's activities and interests related to the Internet. These are evolving rapidly. What I have had to say today is quite different from what I would have said six month's ago and I am sure that there will have been as many developments in six months' time. In the short term, it is important to resolve the on-going debate about the Internet DNS and more generally the system of global Internet governance which will be put in place, possibly in the course of next year. It will also be necessary to resolve current uncertainties about the regulation of content, liability questions and the protection of intellectual property. International cooperation has a high priority here, both multilateral in ITU, WIPO, OECD and other fora and bilaterally, in this case, especially between the European Union and the United States, although there are many other interested parties. In the longer term we will have to look at the issues posed by the potential for global growth in the Internet by one or two orders of magnitude. This will raise technological and regulatory issues which - with the exception of IP-Version 6 - have not yet been appreciated in the policy arena even if they may have been addressed in the relevant IETF working groups. From this point of view I would personally like to see a stronger link in the future between IETF standardisation work and the more classic ICT standardisation work carried out in the industrial consortia and in the international standardisation bodies. I thank you all for your attention.