NEWS 10.09.1999: Derek Wyatt, MP, has revealed plans for a major internet forum that he claims will be the world's first in-depth investigation of the relationship between Internet and government.
"The idea is to bring together 500 government ministers and officials every year to thrash out the issues once and for all," Wyatt claims. "This hasn't happened on this scale ever before."
Also attending will be some of the world's leading internet and IT companies to bring a business-led perspective to the discussions.
Wyatt stressed that the forum is not going to be exclusive to the richer economies - transportation for ministers from countries across the economic spectrum will be provided.
10.09.2004: Much like Derek Wyatt's more recent forays into fighting spam, this idea was well-intentioned but poorly thought out and executed.
The World Internet Forum attracted a host of top speakers but had to be cancelled in the end due to a lack of interest. At the time Ian Angell, professor of information systems at the London School of Economics, said the cancellation showed politics and ideologies are not important to the IT industry.
IT professionals see their time as better spent on something concrete rather than ideas and political issues," he said.
The organisers insisted that a World Internet Forum would "probably" take place in the future. Then the dot-com crash happened, pretty much putting paid to that idea.
In the meantime Wyatt, MP for Sittingbourne, has banged the drum for a number of tech issues and divided the industry and attracted both praise and criticism, with some people labelling his initiatives as misguided meddling.
