The uneven spread of the Internet - highly developed in wealthier nations, patchy elsewhere - could aggravate inequality between the world's rich and poor, according to international development experts meeting at Harvard University for a conference on the Internet and society. Ernest Wilson, director of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland and a former White House adviser on international policy, says the prevalence of "techno-optimism" - the unquestioning enthusiasm for all new technology - means that far too little attention is paid to "dark-side, dystopian issues" like inequality.
It's assumed that the Internet will automatically lead to rising incomes and reduced inequality. But, according to Wilson, "data from the World Bank show this isn't the case, neither globally between nations, nor nationally within countries. Even though information technology is widely introduced into the global system, inequality is still high. The top 5 per cent are increasing their share of world wealth, and the bottom 5 per cent are losing their already small share."
Information technology may be widening this gulf, says Wilson. "If land was the source of wealth during the agricultural revolution, and company shares in the industrial period, what will it be in the information age? Access to information and the capacity to filter, manipulate, use and apply that information."
Wilson suggests steps that can be taken to address the imbalance within national societies such as the creation of "telecentres" and public sector kiosks; encouraging private sector provision of public information technology access services; and education - "especially the children of the poor and disadvantaged. Wire libraries, schools and community centres through cross-media subsidies."
Betty Turock, a professor at the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University, New Jersey, says governments must work together. "It's a matter of establishing new global rules of the road in a world of electronic information: the old rules have become obsolete," she says.
"When more information is being supplied electronically, those who do not have access will not have the benefit of information on jobs, education and government as those who do." She cites the US government's policy of subsidising telecommunications access for public libraries as a model. One ambitious project to tap private sector resources to boost equal access in cyberspace is the "global park" concept, currently being developed by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society (cyber.law.harvard.edu/).
Charles Nesson, the centre's director, says global parks are zones on the Web where public works and commerce are self-reinforcing. "The best way to prevent a government organisation from regulating the Web, and thereby controlling its commercial potential, is for businesses to demonstrate they can regulate themselves," he says.
The Berkman Center's own Web site is a global park model, offering free online courses on Internet law.
Some experts do not acknowledge there are problems with accessibility. Tony Rutkowski, director of Internet consultancy NGI Associates and a founder of the Internet Society, is bullish about the Net's power to solve its problems, and maintains it can help reduce inequalities.
"Open connectivity, access to the most recent information and software on the same basis as everyone else, and ultra-low costs have made the Internet a boon for the developing world," says Rutkowski.
In contrast, Zar Ni, co-ordinator of the Free Burma Coalition, a human rights campaign being fought on the Internet, believes global inequalities are built into the system.
"The merging Internet-based inequalities are deeply rooted in the political and economic order of the present world, and a handful of nations consistently dominate," says Zar Ni. "Long-term solutions are almost non-existent. Rarely does anyone in power talk about a more equal and more just human global order."
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