Internet information havens - the 21st century tax haven?

Another of these suppliers claim on their website: “It's safer, it's faster and it's everywhere. Use XXX to shop at thousands of web-sites, knowing that your financial details are never shared.” Indeed you cannot share what you cannot use but “it’s everywhere”? Guess not.

Off course there is the stupidity of those on the other side as well. “Operation-payback”, I get the image of football hooligans. Not really interested in the welfare of their club just aggression and stupidity looking for a reason to manifest itself. Their actions they give the “other side” the opportunity to portrait themselves as the victims and legitimize their actions in the eyes of the general public.

So what is the conclusion who wins who loses? Assange and Wikileaks, they clearly gained publicity but as the new form of Internet aided journalism or just an opportunistic, “shoot everything that moves”, conspiracy paranoid new form of anarchy? I guess time will tell.

The lady governor? She lost so much credibility in the past it would be impossible to lose even more. However she did get publicity so I would say a draw for her.

The multinational, independent Internet Service providers that are caught with their paints down? I hope they make a decent portion of their turnover in the US because it will cost them a bundle to re-establishtheir lost credibility in the rest of the world. Then again the as the newspaper showed within two weeks it is business as usual with new sites using the same services. I would say these companies lost. However I would love to see their financial figures in the coming period to see if their actions were indeed “bad for business”. Maybe the world has turned so cynical that organizations that prove to be this untrustworthy do not even have to pay the price.

The US Government? In this world there are a number of countries were the government operates a “ministry of truth”. The way this incident has been handled basically showed those governments “how it’s done”. Even worse countries like Venezuela, Iran, North Korea but also Russia and China now have example tactics towards information on the Internet they do not appreciate.

The US Government has lost the “high ground” should other governments use similar bully tactics. Complaining would be like “pots calling the kettle black”. US Government how does it feel to run a “ministry of truth”? You lose!

So who wins? Countries like Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Caymans  and others made billions by providing tax havens with banking regulations that give them the image of independence and trustworthiness even when the “big boys” come knocking. I do agree with Wikileaks and Assange about the need to create “New media havens”.  However I would not make it especially for “New media” but for information in all forms so I would call it an “Information haven”.

This incident shows the need for these information havens and in my book Sweden gained admittance to the list. Given the still growing importance of internet in this century of information I would expect that this list will become as rewarding in this century as being considered a tax-haven was in the last one. Sweden, you win!