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December 09, 2003

Amour propre? It's not only journalists who are being treated like chewing gum on the sole of a security guard's jackboot. Lynn St Amour, president of the Internet Society (a body that plays a significant role in deciding the future of the net) was told that she could have 15 minutes of her hour long press conference because the timetable had been reorganised. Half way through her talk she was given throat-slitting signs from the back of the room telling her to stop and make way for the next press conference. Daily Summit spoke to one angry President...

Lynn St Amour is not at all keen on the ITU, who are, of course, the UN agency hosting this summit. "The internet was developed on academic principles of sharing information. The ITU's historical model shows that it doesn't have the same principles," she said. "Governments look towards regulatory methods to overcome problems, but that is not appropriate for the internet."

She is counting her lucky stars that the issue of who governs the internet has been all but dropped from the summit's agenda, although she won't relax until the conference is over.

So much for lofty issues. What can we do about spam? "I receive between 500 and 600 e-mails a day, and 50 per cent of that is spam," she said. "It's something that will always be with us. The forecast is that spam will increase until it comprises 95 per cent of all e-mail. My hope is that filtering agents will continue to get smarter and save us from it, but they will never be able to eradicate spam."

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