Developing Internet Development Policy And Restrictive Strategies

With a rapid growth for more than20years, not destroyed by Internet bubble inthe late1990s, internet, a promising industry, has boomed in all aspects of our societyall over the world. There are two billion Internet users distributed in207countries orregions in2010, so that no where can cut off from the connection to Internet. What’smore, as a driving force of global digital economy, Internet has a profound impact onsocial and economic structure, mode of organizations, business model, managementbehavior, and many other aspects of our lives. In the United States, Japan and someother developed countries, the output of information industry-related activitiesaccounts for more than50%of GDP. And this new industry has contributed to GDPvalue far more than the primary and secondary industries. Nowadays, Internettechnology has penetrated every corner of a country’s development, from e-commerceto new media, from internet democracy to e-government, throughout all areas ofeconomic and social development.This article, from the perspective of political development theory and based onthe research of seven developing countries with different levels of development andvarious political systems, including Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Iran, Syria, Egypt andTunisia, introduces specific Internet policies in these seven countries. And then, thisarticle discusses one common characteristic among these countries, whose Internetpolicy always contains two sides, on one hand to take measures to promote itsdevelopment, and also on the other to use of all means to control its development.Thus leading to the most important question herein: how this kind of Internet policyhas formed? In the third and fourth part, this article will try to explain what themotivations of this promoting and restrictive policy by investigating the cases from7developing countries mentioned above. The Internet policy in developing countrieswill also be evaluated in the final part.