Bussiness Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Bussiness Law - Essay Example With its exponential growth and the explosion in information and exposure in the world due to it, there was felt a need for an establishment and determination of rules and regulations, and a framework for it to operate within. A committee or a forum was needed to be established that would discuss and lay the framework and the critical and basic issues related to the regulation of the Internet. For this purpose, a convention was held in Athens, Greece, in 2006, called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), under the UN that laid the grounds for the next convention that was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 12 through 15 of November 2007. Both the conventions established the agenda and objectives of the IGF to be followed internationally. All the stakeholders from all the countries, especially the governments, are encouraged to participate, abide by the regulations and actively involve in their implementation in their countries. This is imperative as Internet crosses all national boundaries and this makes supervision by one body both impossible and inefficient. Four basic and major objectives were laid down in the first convention in Athens, and a fifth was added in the agenda in the second convention in Rio, along with building upon the established four. Basically, all these agendas are based on the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. These objectives are as follows: Access: the Internet is on an ever increasing growth, however, majority of the world population still lives in isolation from this important tool that has the power to radically change the economic and the social conditions of any society. According to reports, out of the total 6 billion people living in the world today, approximately only 1 billion have access to the Internet facility, the remaining five billion people are still on the other side of the digital divide that is so crucial to bridge. The true power of the Internet can only be fully harnessed if it is utilized by the majority of the people worldwide. Up till now, however, only approximately 1.6% of the world population is benefiting from it. This means that the availability of access is the most important and urgent issue facing the forum, and it has to be tackled first. To counteract upon it, certain proposals have been included in the agenda.First off, an effort would have to be made on the international level, invol ving all participating stakeholders, to set up regulatory bodies and to outline legal policies for investment and establishment of infrastructure in this sector. Most of the population that does not have access to the Internet are the local people living in rural areas. These areas pose several problems. The economic standards of people living there are not very high, and so Internet access would have to be made affordable and easy. For this, local access points, or building-out infrastructures (IGF 2007) would have to