BRICs push for bigger say in running of Internet

Campaigners for a loosely regulated Internet are alarmed at the risk to Web freedom from fast-growing Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and other emerging economies seeking more say in how the online realm is policed.

They fear tighter government control by authoritarian countries will strangle the liberal culture which has allowed the still-young Internet to thrive as an engine of economic growth and innovation. China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last month proposed to the United Nations a global code of conduct embodying among others the principle that "policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of states." China exercises comprehensive censorship and surveillance over its Internet population of half a billion, the world's biggest, while Uzbekistan is considered an "enemy of the Internet" by press-freedom group Reporters without Borders. "Some of those countries have a more authoritarian character, and so they're accustomed to interfering with what would otherwise be thought to be freedom of expression," Internet pioneer Vint Cerf said.