Towards an Internet Bill of Rights

A crucial question in the European debate on the Internet is which rules are best suited to ensure that the Internet be oriented to the common good and not be restricted to a market-oriented, profit-making perspective. The author’s reasoning touches on a comparative basis complex issues, from the regulatory approach to the order of intervention between binding rules and self-regulations. The issue of the appropriate safeguards for the Internet is also addressed. Should those safeguards be found separately at the national constitutional level, or should a general and a-territorial Internet Bill of Rights be a primary goal? And in such a case who could be the constituent power? The author finds that equality and the maximum expansion of individual freedoms are the overarching values, to be pursued in order that technological innovation achieves fully its potential of being a chance of social, political, economic growth for all