Policy-makers, regulators, parliamentarians, civil society, and media often lack the detailed and up to date knowledge about information and communication policies. The network worked with these key policy institutions around the world to promote and generate discussion on these issues.
Projects
Privacy and security issues in developing countries in Asia
From February 2008 the network conducted extensive outreach to academics, industry representatives, international organisations, parliamentarians, and civil society groups across Asia. They travelled to the region and met with stakeholders and experts in India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand. They also hosted workshop discussions and forums in Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand on various information policy issues including privacy and transparency.
Advanced Internet Policy issues
Some of the pressing internet policy issues suffer because of lack of timely research. Policy-makers are being asked to pass laws on technologies they do not understand; regulators are asked to pass judgement on services where insufficient information is available. From 2007 the network engaged actively with regulators, parliamentarians, and industry to promote research initiatives into new services such as social networking, techniques including online advertising, and computing models like 'cloud computing'. The goal of this research was to identify the leading practices and contentious issues across industry, and to link this with regulatory requirements and consumer protection issues. The primary audiences were policy-makers and regulators. The network met extensively and continually with leading internet and software companies in order to engage them in joint debates on the implications of their service and technology designs. These companies rarely speak to one another so the network provided the space to bring thme together. They conducted research and held meetings with the world's largest internet companies (e.g. AOL, eBay, Google, Yahoo!), social networking companies (e.g. Facebook), software companies (e.g. Microsoft), and telecommunications companies (e.g. BT, Vodafone).
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Advanced Internet Policy Report on Online Consent, May 2009. How can individuals provide consent to the processing of personal information in the online environment? This is one of the most perplexing challenges for the future of internet commerce and services. This report is a result of a one-year working group bringing together leading companies and law firms to understand the ramifications of European laws and regulations on developing practices on end-user consent, focussing on the mechanisms of consent, the communications about practices, and the processing of information on children.
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Advanced Internet Policy Report on Internet Advertising, May 2009. Internet advertising can transform the internet through providing the finances for 'free' services, but at the same time it can invade the privacy of all internet users, often without their knowledge. This is the result of a two year study into the online adveritising techniques of leading internet companies. The purpose of this report is to present and compare the leading companies' approaches to online adveritising.