CONVERGENCE REVIEW
AIMIA CONVERGENCE REVIEW SUBMISSION FEBRUARY 2012
13 February 2012 | Sydney
Dear Committee Members,
This submission is made by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), Google, Telstra, Facebook, Yahoo! and ninemsn. The purpose of this submission is to provide feedback on the Interim Report released by the Convergence Review Committee on 15 December 2011.
We make this submission jointly as key stakeholders in Australia’s internet economy at present, and on behalf of the “internet that is not yet here”. As Professor Lawrence Lessig explained to
the e-‐G8 meeting hosted last year by French President Nickolas Sarkozy in Paris:
“the future of the internet is not Twitter, not Facebook, not Google, it is not even Rupert Murdoch. The future of the internet is not here. It wasn’t invited. It doesn’t even know how to be invited because it doesn’t yet focus on policies and fora like this. The least we can do is to preserve the architecture of this network, that protects this future that is not here.”1
In the context of the Convergence Review, the future of the internet may include services that are only emerging in other markets and have not yet established themselves in Australia yet, and it may include services and innovations that are as yet undiscovered.