Consumer groups dismayed at business-led G8 net summit

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 23 May 2011 at 17:49

Cconsumer groups have slammed the e-G8 Forum, where the leading economic countries are set to discuss all things internet, as being too business centric.

The European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) and Consumers International have issued a statement expressing “dismay” that the G8 meeting dedicated to internet issues will be “organised and financed by industry”.

The series of meetings involving heads of state and industry are set to discuss issues from privacy to intellectual property, but the list of key speakers reads like a Who’s who of big brand companies from the tech and rights holder sectors.

The consumer groups said the guest list raised serious concerns due to a complete absence of representatives outside industry.

These huge questions need to be carefully and comprehensively answered, but here the G8 only seems willing to act as cheerleader for commercial interests

“To deliberate and decide behind closed doors on such fundamental digital issues prompts serious concerns of legitimacy, process and whose interests are being served,” said Helen McCallum, director general of Consumers International.

“The voice of users and civil society has been relegated to the spectator’s gallery, while the internet’s big businesses are encouraged to redraw the maps.”

The plenary session on Intellectual Property and the Culture Economy in the Digital Age, for example, features only representatives of Éditions Gallimard, 20th Century Fox, the French government, Universal Music and Bertelsmann.

BEUC, meanwhile, highlighted the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was debated behind closed doors, and said industry shouldn’t be allowed to lead the debate on privacy in the same way it did with ACTA.

“Cornerstone policies on digital issues are currently being settled at national, European and global level. Consumers’ interests should be at the forefront, of these deliberations, not an afterthought,” Monique Goyens, director general of BEUC, said.

“With the electronic explosion in personal information collected, stored, bought and sold, the risks to privacy have multiplied. These huge questions need to be carefully and comprehensively answered, but here the G8 only seems willing to act as cheerleader for commercial interests.”