Privacy and copyright issues were pitted against demands to limit government regulation of the Internet at a two-day e-G8 Forum in Paris, called by French President Nicholas Sarkozy. The Forum was convened two days before the formal G-8 Summit of the world’s major economies later that same week (May 26-27) on France’s Normandy coast.

Invitations initially went out to some 200 IT executives but hundreds more asked to attend the event in the Tulieries Gardens near the Louvre.  French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, the top contender to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was among several policy makers who joined technocrats like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Eric Schmidt of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Without coming to any conclusions or decisions, the participants had a wide-ranging debate on how to balance the conflicting needs for increased privacy and combating pornography while keeping the World Wide Web the medium of free expression it has become. 

“We need to hear your aspirations, your needs,” said President Sarkozy, adding “you need to hear our limits, our red lines.”

Google’s Eric Schmidt noted that advances in technology have led to a shift in power toward individuals, whether illegally releasing secret documents or rallying against repressive regimes.  “My own opinion is that most governments are having trouble with that shift in power,” and he recommended that rather than complaining about it, ways should be found to better harness that power.

 Although the e-G8 Forum reached no consensus, the final statement at the end of the G-8 summit did include a call for more government oversight of the Internet.  Free speech and free market advocates, however, have little to fear.  Reaching agreement on how this could be done at a global level won’t be easy, given the divergent views among China, the US, Europe and authoritarian governments.