Right to Internet access

The right to Internet access, also known as a right to broadband, is an assertion which claims that a human being has the right to access the Internet as a matter of utilizing a public utility.

History

The United Nations has proposed to make Internet access a human right. This push was made when it called for universal access to basic communication and information services at the UN Administrative Committee on Coordination. In 2003, during the World Summit on the Information Society, another claim for this was made.^[1][2]

In some countries such as Estonia,^[3] France,^[4] Finland,^[5] Greece^[6] and Spain,^[7] Internet access has already been made a human right. This is accomplished by authorizing universal service-contracted providers with the duty to extend a mandatory minimum connection capability to all remaining desiring home users in the country.

Much of the Spanish speaking world has celebrated Internet Day since 2005, including many initiatives of increasing network access. Panama has 214 "infoplazas" ^[8] which are places of free internet access. (from Hoy (from Ecuador) on May 17, 2011, called "Derchos Human y accesso de la red centran celebracion del Dia de Internet.")

Implications and complications

Three strikes

In response to copyright infringement using peer-to-peer software, the creative industries, reliant on copyright, advocate what is known as a "graduated response" which sees consumers disconnected after a number of notification letters warning that they are infringing copyright. The content industry has sought to gain the co-operation of internet service providers (ISPs), asking them to provide subscriber information for IP addresses identified by the content industry as engaged in copyright infringement.^[9] The proposal for internet service providers to cut off Internet access to a subscriber who had received three warning letters of alleged copyright infringement was initially known as "three strikes", based on the baseball rule of "three strikes and you're out". Because "three strikes" was understood to refer to physical assault,^{[citation needed]} the approach was later termed "graduated response". Media attention has focused on attempts to implement such an approach in France (see the HADOPI law) and the UK (see the Digital Economy Act 2010), though the approach, or variations of it, has been implemented in a number of other countries, or attempts are made to do so.^[10]

Breadth of ensured provision

The type and breadth of access which is ensured by an enshrined right can also widely vary, with governments which have pursued an enshrinement of a right to broadband often setting seemingly-adequate minimum targets of speed, number of home connections, type of provision, etc.

References