The hon-e-moon is over!

Pratap Ravindran

The honeymoon (or, hon-e-moon, if you insist) is over.

Goethe, quite some years ago, had pointed out that words are wonderful things, especially when ideas fail you. He could well have been referring to the Internet with latter-day academicians, journalists, myriad analysts and other odds and sods who see no reason why they shouldn't fake it if they can't make it, lunging convulsively for the mouse when their neural networks collapse.

But then, as noted above, the honeymoon of the muddled and the mouse is over. At least in the US, where they presumably know about honeymoons, ongoing and terminal.

The New York-based, non-profit Markle Foundation which is committed to realising ``the potential of emerging communications media and information technology to improve people's lives,'' has recently released the findings of a body-of-opinion research, that it had sponsored, which reveals that 70 per cent of the respondents believe that the truthfulness of most things that they read on the Internet cannot be accepted without question.

The zinger here is that, according to the research findings, this distrust co-exists with the fact that 63 per cent of all Americans and 83 per cent of those who actually go online have a positive view of the Internet with 45 per cent viewing it as a ``library'' and 17 per cent conceptualising it as ``a shopping mall'' or a ``banking and investment office''.

A conflicting finding? Welcome to the brave, new networked world where nothing is what it seems to be.

According to Gerry McGovern, who publishes an e-column, as it were, on the Web, people, on the one hand, say that they like the Internet because it is great for finding information while, on the other, they say they can't trust the information they find. And then again, people say they like the Internet because it is like a giant library -- but most of them don't trust the `books' they find in this library.

``Is this a contradiction or what?''

``It is, indeed, a contradiction, but it can be explained. Think about libraries for a moment. How many people visit them regularly? A very small percentage. People like the Internet because it has made access to information more convenient. You can quickly search through vast quantities of information. You can save, cut `n' paste and bookmark. You can do it all from your home.''

``What people are saying is that the Internet is great, but it could be a lot better. Much time is wasted judging what is credible online and what is not. Unsurprisingly, other surveys are showing that people who use the Internet are becoming more conservative, visiting a small number of Web sites to get their information.''

``What does this mean to someone managing a Web site? It means that your Web site is seen as a library, a place where information can be found. It means that eight out of 10 visitors to your Web site are sceptical about the trustworthiness of the content they will find. You need to be extra vigilant to ensure that your content is accurate.''

``In the eyes of the great majority of people who use the Internet, you are a publisher. A publisher whose information is not trusted does not have a long-term business model.''

Does this mean people want somebody reliable and trustworthy deciding what goes on the Net and what doesn't? Not really. According to the Markle Foundation, the US public, by a 60-37 margin, says that ``rules for governing the Internet should be mostly developed and enforced by organisations other than the Government, such as Internet-related companies and non-profit groups.''

But the public further indicates, by a 58-35 per cent, that it does not want to rely on industry self-regulation alone. Although it is sceptical about Government, it still sees a clear place for Government (by 64-32 per cent): ``Government should develop rules to protect people when they are on the Internet, even if it requires some regulation of the Internet.''

The public, it would seem, wants the Government to have some sort of a role in rule-making for the Internet because this can be accomplished in any meaningful fashion only by ``institutions with teeth.''

The Markle Foundation study observes: ``The public appears to be looking for a pluralistic model of Internet governance. They see specific strengths, but also drawbacks, to the involvement of the Government, the private sector and non-profit organisations.''

Amusingly, when focus-groups, in the course of the one-year study (conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research), were asked to propose nominees for a hypothetical national commission on Internet rule-making, the names thrown up included Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and the Pope.

Please e-mail us at bleditor@thehindu.co.in if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using the computer.