Google’s Schmidt fears spying could ‘break’ Internet

http://yahoonewsdigest-intl.tumblr.com/post/99535488717/googles-schmidt-fears-spying-could-break-internet

Technology

Google’s executive chairman and former chief executive Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday that U.S. online spying is a threat so dire it could wind up “breaking the Internet.” Schmidt’s concern was echoed by Facebook, Microsoft, Dropbox and others involved in a panel discussion in Silicon Valley. The discussion was about economic and regulatory backlash caused by a U.S. spying scandal that has undermined trust in U.S. Internet firms’ ability or willingness to keep people’s online communications private.

The impact is severe, and it is getting worse. The simplest outcome is that we are going to end up breaking the Internet.

Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt

Panelists also say government-erected barriers to the free flow of data online would essentially break the Internet ecosystem that powers economies and lets people share and collaborate across the globe. Threats are already emerging as countries propose trade barriers disguised as regulations calling for Internet companies to host data or services locally, instead of on servers in the United States, panelists said. Pressure for such “data localization” includes keeping digital information in the hands of local companies and not U.S. Internet firms.

The notion of having to place data centers and the data itself within regions is fundamentally at odds with the way the Internet is architected.

Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch