Posted: 2nd February 2008

Abstract

Web 2.0 doesn't just mean user generated content. It also entails a rapid shift to cloud computing for mainstream consumers. As our work and lives migrate from desktops that we control to servers that we do not, startling opportunities for regulation arise. Considering examples from next generation consumer products and the latest Web 2.0 mashup platforms, this session explains some of the big social worries that await us with twenty-first century computing -- and how we might avoid them.

Jonathan Zittrain holds the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and is a principal of the Oxford Internet Institute. His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education. He performed the first large-scale tests of Internet filtering in China and Saudi Arabia in 2002, and now as part of the OpenNet Initiative he has co-edited a study of Internet filtering by national governments, "Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering."

His book about the future of the now-intertwined Internet and PC will be available in spring 2008 from Yale University Press and Penguin UK - and under a Creative Commons license. Papers may be found here.