Pew study points to commercialisation as the big threat to internet
05 Jul 2014
Though the results of a new Pew study may cheer the advocates of a free internetm the study also highlights a number of threats that could worsen by 2025.
In the study 1,400 technology experts were asked about the biggest internet threats in the next 20 years. The diverse group came from varied background including academics, industry, the tech space.
The experts were asked a simple question to which they had to respond with either a 'Yes' or 'No'.
Pew asked: "By 2025 will there be significant changes for the worse and hindrances to the ways in which people get and share content online compared with the way globally networked people can operate online today?''
While 35 per cent of the respondents, said yes, 65 per cent replied in the negative.
The experts were next asked what they believed would the biggest threat that the internet would face by 2015. The experts surveyed by Pew said the government and big online corporations were the biggest threat to the internet, not hacking or other forms of cyber war.
''We call this research study a canvassing because it is not a representative, randomized survey. Its findings emerge from an ''opt in'' invitation to thousands of experts who have been identified by researching those who are widely quoted as technology builders and analysts and those who have made insightful predictions to our previous queries about the future of the Internet,'' Pew said in the summary of the report.
''Twenty-five years after the birth of the World Wide Web, technology experts from around the world are expressing concerns about threats to the continued development of the free and open Internet and the retention of online civil liberties,'' state the writers of the report, issued Thursday in conjunction with Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center.
Among other evolving threats to civil liberties online, the commercialisation of the web emerged as a major area of concern.
Many industries were struggling to create revenue from the web but faced resistance from consumers who are used to free access.
This could create a system that undermined net neutrality, the underlying principle of equal treatment for all online content and applications.
''Commercialisation of the internet, paradoxically, is the biggest challenge to the growth of the Internet,'' wrote one expert, noting the ''increase in walled gardens created by giants like Facebook and Apple,'' and adding that ''Communication networks' lobbying against Net neutrality is the biggest example of this.''
