The White House is set to announce plans this week for its much-anticipated Alliance for the Future of the Internet, a bid to rally a coalition of democracies around a vision for an open and free web.
According to a draft proposal leaked to POLITICO last month, the alliance was originally conceived as a group of “like-minded countries” making a set of specific commitments to “promote a new and better vision of an open, trusted, and secure internet.” That includes commitments in areas related to cybersecurity, privacy and data transfers, among other things. The idea for the alliance was spearheaded by Peter Harrell, senior director for international economics and competitiveness on the National Security Council, and Tim Wu, a prominent tech critic and current special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy. It was timed to launch “on the margins” of the Summit for Democracy, which kicks off Thursday and will gather leaders from more than 100 countries to discuss how to stop the spread of authoritarianism around the world.