MUNICH, Germany -- Ira Magaziner, his tongue freed now that he no longer works in the White House, used the Internet Content Summit to give Europe a sharp warning on its economic future.
"I think in Europe the trend has been toward paternalism," he said.
Europe, he said, has to ask whether it will embrace the Internet revolution. That means less government regulation.
In the United States, Magaziner said, "the Internet revolution is the major driving force of our economy.... In the new age, speed is what gives competitive advantage."
Europe has been slow to respond to Internet trends, in part because of governmental resistance, he said. For example, a recent effort in Ireland to offer cheap Internet use, which would also have meant lower local phone rates, caused a significant protest from EU headquarters in Brussels.
"I'm being very blunt," Magaziner told European participants in the weekend summit. "Almost like a parent with a teenager, at some point you have to have the courage to step back. I urge you to consider these issues. They really are going to affect your ability to attain your economic and technological future."
Not that the United States should chart a course for Europe, he said. "My only fear is that if you want to get the economic benefits of the new medium, you have to think about this."
German Interior Minister Otto Schily departed before Magaziner made his remarks on Saturday. But Schily said Friday the German government this month will introduce new policy guidelines designed to nurture the information society.
"Man must be in the center of the enormous innovation process ahead of us," Schily said. "Technology must serve man, not vice versa."
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Potential sanctions: One cloudy area of the deliberations on "Self-Regulation of Internet Content" was the extent to which governments would be involved if the plan is enacted. Here is an explanation from the booklet prepared by the Bertlesmann Foundation, which developed the plan and hosted the summit.
"Governments can encourage the creation of filters through, for example, tax incentives," it said. "However, governments should not impose criminal sanctions for failure to rate Web sites."
Reassured?
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Now, for the numbers: There were numbers galore at the conference. AOL said that 80 percent of its users with children in the household use some kind of parental-control filtering. ... Magaziner said 20,000 new Web sites are created every week, more than half of them outside the United States, and that very soon there would be a billion Internet users worldwide. ... Each week, more than 2,000 new pornographic Web sites are identified.
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Quotebook: "If you're the kind of parent who mistakenly believes you understand the Internet better than your children, you can let everything through. If you love violence and hate sex, you can filter out the sex. Or the opposite," Magaziner said.
