The Internet raises consumer protection issues govts. must consid...

ways to regulate key matters, including privacy, security and protection from outlaw content or malicious software. Ofcom noted 4 aspects of effective Internet and online service oversight: (1) Varying success in consumer protection, international or national. When national ISPs act effectively, or consumers have access to educational tools, efforts at protection can succeed. But that often is less likely, since it requires cooperation among many levels of the Internet value chain. (2) Successful protection generally involves much more self- and co-regulation than other media. A self-regulatory tack by the Internet Watch Foundation -- it runs a hotline for reporting illegal content and issues take-down notices to hosting ISPs in the U.K -- resulted in only 0.4% of possibly illegal child abuse images being found hosted in the U.K. But the international problem remains. (3) For protection to work, international cooperation must increase. Global efforts tend to lack adequate enforcement, and perpetrators rarely are pursued due to political and cultural barriers. (4) The Internet “inevitably” puts more onus on consumers to guard themselves from unwanted content and services or from cybercrime. Ofcom’s report is the first in a series of surveys on international approaches to regulation and the Internet. The regulator also is assessing the impact of increased communications market convergence to see if its methods should change. “While we do not draw specific policy recommendations from this survey, we hope it will open a debate with and amongst interested parties on the appropriate response to the consumer protection challenges posed by the Internet,” Ofcom said. It won’t try to paste existing regulatory structures onto the Internet, it said.