The Mozilla Foundation released its 2018 Internet Health Report today. The report calls for the regulation of major companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
The date of the Internet Health Report’s release is no coincidence, as it coincides with the day Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify before Congress.
While giants like Alibaba and Tencent in China have “helped billions realize the benefits of the Internet,” the report calls for the regulation of several players to reverse the consolidation of power and monopolistic business practices that undermine “privacy, and competition online.”
“They crowd out competitors, stifling innovation in the process,” the report says.
“As their ability to understand vast amounts of data increases through advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, they are likely to move into adjacent businesses through vertical integrations in hardware, software, infrastructure, cars, media, unless we find a way to stop them.”
Governments should enforce laws against all anticompetitive behavior and revisit ancient antitrust models when applying regulations to tech giants, the report said.
The Internet Health Report does not attempt to examine and rate the “health” of the internet or diagnose problems. Instead, it explores important issues that the report’s authors believe have helped shape today’s online environment and examines how these trends are affecting people’s lives in the real world.
Fake news and propaganda (see Facebook ), as well as weak security in Internet of Things (IoT) devices, are cited in the report among the trends affecting the real world. “By 2020, there will be up to 30 billion devices, including insecure webcams, baby monitors and other devices that can be weaponized [for data collection],” the report says. “With every device without a password, the internet becomes a little more vulnerable and dangerous.” The report’s authors cited the use of the Mirai malware , which gained control of a number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and played a significant role in a DDoS attack on Dyn, as an example. The Internet Health Report says that censorship and online harassment have worsened, but also some good news regarding internet access, data encryption and affordability. [su_note note_color=”#efefef” text_color=”#000000″]Today, nearly 70% of Firefox web traffic comes from encrypted pages using HTTPS.[/su_note] Overall, the report finds that the number of Internet users worldwide continues to grow, but it also says that prices will need to continue to fall in order to gain access for even more people. The Internet Health Report is an open source initiative implemented with the help of Mozilla engineers, digital rights activists, and researchers. To read the full report, visit internethealthreport.org . The first report was released in January 2017.
