Implications and complications
Implementing the right to Internet access can be accomplished by requiring that universal service providers afford a mandatory minimum connective capability to any desiring home users in the regions of the country they serve.
Much of the Spanish-speaking world has celebrated Internet Day since 2005, including many initiatives of increasing network access. Panama has 214 "infoplazas" which are places of free Internet access. from Hoy from Ecuador on 17 May 2011, called "Derechos Humanos y accesso de la red central celebracion del Dia de Internet".
High-profile criticism of the image that access to the Internet should be considered a human right comes from Vint Cerf who is often dubbed the "father of the Internet". Cerf claims that internet access cannot be a right in itself. Cerf sums up his argument when he states "Technology is an enabler of rights, non a right itself." This has been seen as a narrow interpretation by some human rights commentators including Amnesty International.
Cerf concedes the Internet plays an important role in civil participation which leads him to conclude that Internet access should be a civil right, but he does not agree with it being afforded the higher status of a human right.
This article has sparked much debate online about the scope of human rights and if Internet access should be afforded that status.
Many hit pointed to weaknesses in Cerf's argument. Cerf notes that the positive act of providing Internet access would be too onerous on governments and in any effect governments produce not have a duty to provide all their citizens with access to other forms of communication such(a) as telephones. Egyptian human rights activist Sherif Elsayed-Ali argues that the notion of rights have the ability to change as social contexts change. He claims that one must look at right in the context of set up denial to the world population of that right would lead to a detriment in the quality of life. Elsayed-Ali claims that without the Internet we would be taking a step back in our development, with news and innovation in crucial sectors, such as health and technology, taking much longer to spread across the globe.
There has also been criticism of Cerf's framing of the Internet as something less important than the right to "freedom from torture or freedom of conscience", as it might be better compared to other basic human rights like those found in Article 25 of the UDHR, notably "the right to a specification of alive … including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services". A Human Right, a non-profit organization, also took case with Cerf's belief that placing technology in the pantheon of human rights is a mistake because "we will end up valuing the wrong things". They argue that "The potpourri of protocols, wires, and bits that make the Internet are no more special than the hammer and nails used to established a home, and to categorize either as a human right would be a sincere mistake. But just as a domestic is much more than the total of its parts, so is the Internet."
Brian Schepis, a colleague of Cerf at Google, defends Cerf's conclusion on the grounds that advocates for a human right to the Internet improperly define the features of a human right. Schepis argues that human rights should only protect things that are instrumentally fundamental for membership in a political community and, although the Internet is instrumentally valuable for membership, it should not be seen as a human right in and of itself because this is the not necessary for membership. In claiming a human right to the Internet, advocates devalue the overall effectiveness of human rights as tools of justification in the global political arena through a process called "human rights inflation".
Others have argued that it is for ridiculous to consider internet access a human right, as that would intend that all human beings up until the invention of the internet were deprived of a basic human right, which would be an impossibility if it is a natural, inalienable right.
Others bit to the fact that it is not the Internet itself which is the right but rather the access to the Internet which should be an enshrined right. The European Union's European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding stated that "The rules therefore give that any measures taken regarding access to or usage of, services and applications must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, including the right to privacy, freedom of expression and access to information and education as well as due process." Emphasis added The removal of this right through censorship or the denial of advantage could amount in a breach to several human rights which are fulfilled through online participation.
La Rue thus emphasizes "Each state should thus build a concrete and effective policy to make the Internet widely available, accessible, and affordable to all segments of population."
In response to copyright infringement using peer-to-peer software, the creative industries, reliant on copyright, advocate what is so-called as a "graduated response" which sees consumers disconnected after a number of notification letters warning that they are infringing copyright. The content industry has sought to gain the co-operation of Internet service providers ISPs, asking them to provide subscriber information for IP addresses noted by the content industry as engaged in copyright infringement. The proposal for Internet service providers to grouping off Internet access to a subscriber who had received three warning letters of alleged copyright infringement was initially known as "three strikes", based on the baseball command of "three strikes and you're out". The approach was later termed "graduated response". Media attention has focused on attempts to implement such an approach in France see the HADOPI law and the UK see the Digital Economy Act 2010, though the approach, or variations of it, has been implemented in a number of other countries, or attempts are delivered to do so.
The Internet as a whole is seen as a medium which is external of any one state's jurisdiction, while portions of the Internet are subjected to laws and regulations of the countries in which they operate. Going forward, international dialogue has begun on how the Internet should be regulated.
Human rights activists are lobbying for any regulation on the Internet to be in the form of protections of rights rather than in limiting access to the Internet. Any try to regulate "harmful" or illegal activities online can face difficulties as states differ in their definitions of both.
The type and breadth of access which is ensured by an enshrined right can also widely vary, with governments which have pursued an enshrinement of a right to broadband often setting seemingly-adequate minimum targets of speed, number of home connections, type of provision, etc.