Since the web is totally worldwide, we need a set of behavioural rules, laws they are commonly called, that are accepted worldwide. There is a big difference as to how things are treated in the U.S. and Europe and Asia.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've always wanted to find the rules that govern everything. It's amazing that such rules exist. It's even more amazing that we can find them.
We support an open Internet and having rules - the right kind of rules that are legally enforceable and allow for investment and innovation.
The thing we have to be careful of is that the Internet is a global communications medium, and if one country tips the balance in regulating its use or regulating what companies or individuals do on the web, it could have an economic impact that might be unintended, quite frankly, by the regulations themselves.
It's much better to have rules that we can actually live within. And absolute prohibitions, generally, are not the kind of rules that countries would live within.
A number of countries, including Russia and China, have put forward proposals to regulate aspects of the Internet like 'crime' and 'security' that are currently unregulated at the global level due to lack of international consensus over what those terms actually mean or over how to balance enforcement with the protection of citizens' rights.
Over many years, the United States has worked to persuade and compel governments around the world to abide by the rules. By spurning our own rules, we put that effort at risk.
Because America leads the world by example, it's no surprise that some might seek to imitate our domestic rules and regulations on a global scale.
We have to have some rules and regulations in America, or the world would empty out here.
It's like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules.
No matter what you do, any country in the world is going to have the ability to set its own rules internally. Any country in the world can pull the plug. It's not a question of technical issues, it's not a question of right or wrong, it's not a question of whether global Internet governance is right or wrong. It's just with us.