Sarkozy enlists tech A-list for Web forum

One, typically espoused by new companies like Google Inc. or Amazon.com Inc challenging the status quo, favors a hands-off regulatory approach and favorable tax and labor rules to ensure the Internet remains a key growth engine.

The other, more common in Europe, tends to be more concerned about the excesses of the Internet and has been more willing to impose regulation on everything from privacy to copyright issues to protect entrenched interests.

“The future of the Internet is being decided by businesses that are just trying to protect themselves from the potential of the Internet,” says Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, a campaigner for less regulation in fields like copyright.

“These tend to be the businesses with the most political influence,” adds Lessig, who will join Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Eric Schmidt, News Corp's Rupert Murdoch and a host of other technology leaders in Paris.

The United States, with its flourishing Internet hub in Silicon Valley, is the envy of many entrepreneurs in Europe who feel hampered by a lack of angel investors, unhelpful regulation in areas like stock options — and a lack of like-minded people.

And the fact that the event is being hosted by Sarkozy, a figure seen with trepidation by many techies for his strict anti-piracy stance and proposal to tax global Internet companies, is a sign of those divisions.

“Regulating the Internet to correct its excesses and abuses that come about in the total absence of rules — this is a moral imperative!” Sarkozy said in a speech at the Vatican in 2010.

Sarkozy is probably best known in the online world for passing a law that calls for Internet access to be cut off to people caught pirating copyrighted works three times.

He cast this as a necessity to prevent the Internet from killing off traditional artists, authors and musicians.

“Internet is a new frontier, a territory to conquer. But it cannot be a Wild West, a lawless place, where people are allowed to pillage artistic works with no limits,” he said at the time.

One source close to the French presidency of the G-8 said the United States was initially reticent about putting Internet policy on the agenda, fearing it would be a repeat of the fight over banking sector reform that took place among G-20 nations after the financial crisis.

At that time, France and Germany argued that financial markets needed stricter oversight, while the United States and United Kingdom resisted some proposals that they felt would crimp growth.

“Nicolas Sarkozy convinced Barack Obama when they met in January in Washington,” said the source, adding that assurances were given that the same approach wouldn't be taken this time.

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