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3. The word “broadcasting” should be replaced by “posting” when people refer to “publishing” (another wrong concept)
for on-line distribution. This linguistically sanitary measure would automatically render inoperative most legislation
covering radio and TV when applied to the Internet.

4. If national and local government are to survive the radical fragmentation of all human associations down to the in-
dividual body-unit and the irrepressible transborder data flow of all communication, they would be well advised to
protect its public media, e.g. public radio and public TV. The development and protection of new public venues on
and off-line, within and without linguistic boundaries will replace the army and military investment as defence
mechanisms for large bodies of human associations.

5. The very notion of boundary should give way to networks. Political organisations and policy will reflect networked
associations based on local and global interests with direct participation rather than representation; Internet poli-
cy should attempt to support that.

6. The conditions of successful human interactions in a WebTV environment are:

- open access (i.e., affordable and reliable)
- early adoption (i.e, educable)

- fluid navigation (ubiquitously available)

- targeted connectivity

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The paradox of the Internet is that while it is addressed to the individual user wherever he or she is, what it provides has
no boundary, and thus is global. So whatever legislation is being considered has to be inclusive and global. The main is-
sues hence are to identify what is “public” as opposed to private domain in global terms (in that respect the question of
“domain name" debated in the DNS.com discussion group is of the highest relevance if not always of the highest congru-
ence). Just as western society at large eventually developed a charter of human rights a little over 50 years ago, we should
now consider what would be the items and contents of an international charter of information rights. And world govern-
ments should agree on providing a global or many global public consulting venues and also offering global public services
to that effect.

Another global concern affecting the immediate and the future state of connected communications is the issue of software
patents and copyright. As the system becomes a seamless unified environment, world agreements must be considered to
balance the individual rights to intellectual property with fair use and distribution. In software as in medical, pharmaceu-
tical and engineering innovation and practice, local patenting practices often put a stranglehold on individual talent.
Another issue, more controversial perhaps, goes under the general notion of the “bit-tax". The bit-tax is much resisted in
the US generally, but supported in Canada and the Netherlands by many, and particularly by Dutch economist Luc Soete
from the university of Maastricht. Soete suggested in the recent economic Forum in Davos where the emphasis was on big
business becoming “responsible” that as the bulk of the earning power of the economy moves from hardware to software
and from off to on-line, the bulk of public revenue should also take its source there. At the very least, it was suggested that
a modest bit-tax be levied for the support of infrastructural and economically viable access to networked communications
in underprivileged countries.

One marketing temptation that might affect Web TV adversely would be for big media concerns to put a proprietary stamp
or conditional relationships of use on portals and access within specific channels. Legislation should ensure that "vertical
integration" is not allowed to any single TV and Internet access provider. In other words, | would not want to be in a situ-
ation where because | am tuned to one TV channel, this limits my navigation abilities to a preselected sequence or num-
ber of sites Local governments should do everything they can to avoid granting exclusive rights of occupancy to a handful
of access providers the way they have tended to legislate cable and TV channels. The Chinese model of controlling web
access by licensing agreements is a dangerous precedent in that direction.

Nor do | feel more confident about the American way that seems to say: “Let the market forces do the self-regulation”.
That's ok for you when you control the whole show, as the US communication empire does, but it leaves all the others in