July 4th is the day when we celebrate our Founding Fathers' principles of freedom, equality and religious tolerance. These principles are fundamentals of what made our country so successful. Much of these principles are reflected on World Wide Web as we know it today.
Internet is fundamentally open platform that evens the playing field for all who want to participate. It's does not discriminate whether you are publicly traded company with millions of dollars or one man shop operating on shoestring budget. Everyone's digital bits are delivered equally to anyone requesting for those bits.
It's not just net neutrality. With rise of social networks and blogs, everyone has platform to publish their own ideas and engage with anyone around the world. Traditional media platform has been disrupted by this free sharing of information, and its full impact is yet to be seen.
Because Internet is such a disruptive force to traditional businesses, there are lot of resistance to the economy of information sharing and collaboration. Albert Wenger spoke about the threats that we face to having open Internet and opportunities that we have at Velocity Conference last week.
What is ironic to hear on this 4th of July is defeat of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) by EU. It is essentially created to protect U.S. corporate interest at the price of civil liberty and drafted without public review. Fortunately EU Parliament defeated ACTA with overwhelming margin for now, despite heavy lobbying by U.S. trade representatives.
Instead of fighting the rising tide of openness and collaboration, we should work towards embracing them. Openness and freedom to collaborate should be viewed as opportunities, not threats.
Let's not forget what this country is built on. Freedom and equality for all.
Happy 4th of July to everyone.
Internet is fundamentally open platform that evens the playing field for all who want to participate. It's does not discriminate whether you are publicly traded company with millions of dollars or one man shop operating on shoestring budget. Everyone's digital bits are delivered equally to anyone requesting for those bits.
It's not just net neutrality. With rise of social networks and blogs, everyone has platform to publish their own ideas and engage with anyone around the world. Traditional media platform has been disrupted by this free sharing of information, and its full impact is yet to be seen.
Because Internet is such a disruptive force to traditional businesses, there are lot of resistance to the economy of information sharing and collaboration. Albert Wenger spoke about the threats that we face to having open Internet and opportunities that we have at Velocity Conference last week.
What is ironic to hear on this 4th of July is defeat of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) by EU. It is essentially created to protect U.S. corporate interest at the price of civil liberty and drafted without public review. Fortunately EU Parliament defeated ACTA with overwhelming margin for now, despite heavy lobbying by U.S. trade representatives.
Instead of fighting the rising tide of openness and collaboration, we should work towards embracing them. Openness and freedom to collaborate should be viewed as opportunities, not threats.
Let's not forget what this country is built on. Freedom and equality for all.
Happy 4th of July to everyone.
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