Does the Web need political representation?
October 24th, 2006 by Lloyd Gofton
Further to my post last week, calling for the UK Government to embrace social media as a communications tool, an excellent piece by Richard Wray, the Guardian’s communications editor, got me thinking about the need for political representation for the Web.
The article focused on Google’s registration as a political action committee (PAC) with the US federal election commission.
Google’s NetPAC will enable it to enter the often murky world of corporate donations to support candidates seeking elected office.
In a quote from the article, Ricardo Reyes, Google’s senior manager of global communications and public affairs, commented: “We started this NetPAC in order to be able to support office-holders and candidates who share our vision of promoting and preserving the Internet as a free and open platform for information, communication and innovation. Google has thrived thanks to the opportunities of the free market so we believe it is important to look at policymakers as they make decisions that impact our users and businesses.”
Initially alarm bells started to ring, but hang on, who is going to represent the interests of the Web as an open information platform?
The move makes absolute sense for Google, as it needs political representation to fight increasingly hefty battles on a global scale. The first target of which will be Net neutrality.
I’m not naive enough to believe Google is doing this solely for the good of us all, and of course I can already hear the arguments about the web being a Google dominated medium, but who better to fight the good fight at a political level right now?
I hope this move will assist the safeguarding of the evolution of the web. You can guarantee one thing, Google has the power to be influential on a political stage.
Let me know your thoughts on this issue.
Technorati tags: google, net neutrality, political web , netPAC
