Governments should be concerned about ensuring that there are consumer protections around privacy, around fraud, and around measures to give consumers confidence.

There are many international challenges posed for regulators by the internet.

In a range of applications we increasingly find that our traditional notions of nationally based regulatory structures are partially or wholly irrelevant. To take one example, the growing use of botnets, to mount various forms of criminal and other malicious attacks pose problems for governments. Who do you prosecute when the botnets involve computers in 20 different countries, used to mount attacks in a 21st country which spirit money away to a 22nd country under whose legal framework, nothing illegal is going on?

In June I attended the OECD Ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet (www.oecd.org/FutureInternet). One speaker who stood out was EU Commissioner Vivian Reading who talked about the pivotal importance of co-regulation with industry based, on a clear recognition of consumer rights. At the same time, the EU has demonstrated a strong willingness to regulate where it believes in cannot achieve effective collaboration with industry - the regulation on global roaming charges being a controversial case in point.