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History is rife with examples of governments taking actions to 'protect' their citizens from harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must make sure, collectively, that the Internet avoids a similar fate.

Experience has shown us that attempts to control the Internet will invariably fail. We should be instructed by the failed efforts of China to regulate political content, the efforts of America to regulate Internet gambling, or the efforts of Australia to regulate certain speech. By its very nature, the Internet will always resist such controls.

The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.

Several authoritarian regimes reportedly propose to ban anonymity from the web, making it easier to find and arrest dissidents. At Google, we see and feel the dangers of the government-led net crackdown. We operate in about 150 countries around the globe.

The Internet is so big that no one can control anything, really.

The core problem is that the world is full of people who would like to take 99 per cent of the information that's on the Internet, and eliminate 1 per cent. Everyone has their own thing they don't like.

There was one issue on which there seemed to be almost unanimity: the Internet should not be managed by any government, national or multinational.

There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users' rights to free expression and privacy.

There's the idea that people should be able to control how the information that they're giving to websites is used and monetized in a more clear and powerful way. That's something that probably will need government action.

The Internet's abundance - of information, goods, tastes and sources of authority - creates unparalleled opportunities for individuals to get exactly what they want. But this plenitude threatens political and cultural authorities who believe in telling individuals what they can have rather than letting them choose for themselves.