Individual Members 

Member Surveys

Which of the following "crossroad" technology issues do you believe the Internet Society should highlight in its cyber-referendums?

May 2003

The Internet is at a critical crossroads. Over the next two years, a number of key technological choices will be made by Internet users, IT vendors, standards organizations, and governments (or some combination of them all). These choices could determine the shape of the Internet for the next decade and determine how fast new applications develop and grow. The Internet Society is in a unique position to educate public policy makers and the general public about these choices. By doing so, we can ensure that government policies foster new technologies that meet the needs of all Internet users, result in better, less expensive Internet service, and ensure the continued rapid exponential growth of the Internet, e-business, e-government, and e-learning.

One way in which the Internet Society hopes to highlight these choices--and influence the people making them--is by holding monthly "cyber-referendums" of our members. These surveys can highlight critical new technologies and standards that can help address policy makers' (and Internet users') concerns about the Internet and the Web. In many cases, new technologies will be much more effective than national laws and regulations in ensuring that all Internet users can enjoy the full benefits of the Internet. Given their deep and broad understanding of the Internet, ISOC members are well-positioned to advise policy makers, the press, and the general public on what technology can and cannot do. By publicizing the results of the ISOC cyber-referendums, we could spur the IT vendors and Internet users to adopt new technologies more quickly and, in some cases, discourage unnecessary regulation.

Survey Results

Anti-spam technologies (226)	13.8%
Privacy-enhancing technologies (e.g. P3P) (159)	9.71%
Digital Rights Management technologies (114)	6.96%
IPv6 (166)	10.13%
Wireless Internet technologies (e.g. 802.11) (140)	8.55%
Instant messaging standards (95)	5.8%
Voice over IP (110)	6.72%
Grid computing (63)	3.85%
Web services (91)	5.56%
Rich media standards (e.g. video over IP) (75)	4.58%
Authentication (134)	8.18%
ENUM (35)	2.14%
The domain name system (140)	8.55%
Optical networks (43)	2.63%
Other (47)	2.87%
Total of votes: 1638