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Sarkozy Calls For Cooperation With Web Giants

Can't we all just get along? That, in effect, was French President Nicolas Sarkozy's message to Web giants at a Paris conference this week. According to Reuters, Sarkozy struck a "conciliatory tone" by urging caution in regulating the digital economy, although he firmly believes that governments have a role in helping to limit potential online abuses.

"We don't want to make mistakes in regulating this powerful yet fragile ecosystem," Sarkozy said in response to a question from journalism professor Jeff Jarvis. "We have to act with pragmatism. It is better to do nothing than to do harm." More broadly, there remain two opposing views of the Internet, according to Reuters.

"One, espoused by Silicon Valley companies, such as Google and Twitter ... favors a hands-off approach to allow innovation and freedom of information." On the other side, established media companies, privacy advocates and governments in Europe, favor more regulation to cope with what Reuters calls "the broad changes to business and society brought on by the Web."

Read the whole story at Yahoo News »

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