Internet minister

German industry is growing increasingly frustrated with how the government is handling Internet policy and has begun lobbying for the creation of a new high-level government position to take control.

"Internet policy is currently handled by a number of ministries, which don't always coordinate with each other," Bernhard Rohleder, managing director of the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom), told Deutsche Welle.

"There's a lot happening, but there's also a lot of confusion. Someone in the cabinet needs to coordinate Internet policy; the Chancellor can't do it all."

At the opening of the CeBIT trade show in Hanover on Monday, Bitkom president August-Wilhelm Scheer suggested creating a new Internet Minister position, which would condense the cyberspace policymaking machinery of the various ministries into a single role.

Scheer believes Internet policy has become too fragmented and dispersed across the government, and that the world's largest communications network is now too important – to both businesses and consumers – to leave important decisions about its use and governance to chance.

No easy sale

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at least for now, isn't sold on the idea. "I don't think (such) a minister is the solution," she said in Hanover. "I think the economics minister, in his capacity as the person leading information and communications talks with the private sector, is in the best position to coordinate and develop IT policy."

The problem, says Rohleder, is that even the economics minister doesn't always know, or have control, over the Internet policy decisions of other ministries, such as the ministry for consumer affairs and agriculture.

"The new position that we have in mind doesn't necessarily have to be a minister," Rohleder said.

"It could be something like a secretary of state for the digital society or even some type of federal CIO. What's important is that the person has the authority to coordinate policy across the government."

Ultimately, however, this new position would require both the federal ministries and powerful German states to surrender some control – a move that neither side is likely to make without putting up a fight, according to Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, an Internet policy expert and professor at the National University of Singapore.

He sees a deeply rooted problem in the division between German states, which are responsible for the media, and the federal government, which is in charge of e-commerce.

"That makes for a terribly ineffective regulatory landscape in the Internet age, where the differences between media, e-commerce and online services are breaking down," he said.

Mayer-Schönberger has a solution but isn't willing to let the cat out of the box until he delivers a paper at a conference in Germany later this month.

Author: John Blau
Editor: Nathan Witkop