Internet+Service+Providers+(International)

Internet Service Providers exist in all countries using the Internet. They are companies with substantial networks to be able to provide an Internet connection. Examples of local providers for North America would be Sympatico, Bell, Rogers, and many more. A complete list of international ISPs is listed by country at: http://www.thelist.com.

There has been growing concern over the censoring and monitoring power given to ISPs by the governments. The question would be in regards to privacy, where governments and ISPs would have the power to see actions and private information of its users and freedom of speech,where the users wouldn't be able to see all sites if they are in a certain point of the world. Government control in censoring Internet content is usually justified by protecting children, stopping terrorists, silence racists, prevent misinformation, stabilize society and the like.

Internationally, all governments have a power over Internet Service Providers. The most famous example would be in China, where the government forced each local ISP to block sites it deemed "inappropriate" with the Internet Censorship Law. Censored sites would include those with anti-government or anti-communist content, and those proclaiming views of different systems. Also prices are made high to limit mass access.

The same case can be found in Vietnam - government power over content is totalitarian, "dissident" sites are prohibited, and 3 year jail terms could be enforced for those who break the law.

A similar case for Singapore - strict government control, justified by protecting public morals, political stability and religious harmony. Filtering software is a requirement for anyone with access.

In India, the government gave ISPs the power to censor terrorist sites; as a result Yahoo became unavailable (by mistake).

In Russia all local ISPs are under government control. They all implemented the system of monitoring Internet content after the 2002 terrorist attacks. Diplomatic immunity is given to international companies like "Cityline", which are not forced to implement that system.

Sudan recently linked to the Internet via a government led-consortium; yet because of pressure from several religious groups, debate on Internet corruption recently started in Parliament. Prices are made an obvious barrier ($500.00 registration fee and $50.00/month for 30 hours of access).

Cuba, using the reason of protecting national security, limits access to academic institutions, government agencies, diplomatic missions, some businesses and foreign journalists.

Malaysia set up a committee that screens and extracts all foreign Internet reports about the country.

On the other hand, countries like the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, France, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and other European countries have a particular code of conduct for sites, but are not under ISP and government control.


 * References**:

Muhin, Aleksey. Media Imperii Rossii (Russian). Algoritm: Moscow 2005.

The Human Rights Databank. "Issues in Information Access" (1998). [|www.hri.ca/doccentre/docs/guzman.shtml].

The List. "The Definitive ISP Buyer's Guide" (2006). [|www.thelist.com].