06 November 2009

Internet censorship as restraint of trade?

I found this item interesting, though I have yet to read the full report. It reminds me of how telecom reform in the EU was developed and pushed under the guise of competition policy rather than communications policy in the early 1990s. In similar fashion, the US FCC introduced competition into telecommunications not as a common carrier matter but as a frequency allocation matter (the "Above-890" decision in the late 1950s). It clearly matters how you frame the question!

"Censorship is the most important non-tariff barrier to the provision of online services, and a case might clarify the circumstances in which different forms of censorship are WTO-consistent," said the study by Brian Hindley and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama.

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