Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

Divide” both domestically and outside of the United States.2Within the United States, there are dramatic disparities in accessto technology across income levels.3 Geography makes adifference as well: rural Americans are less likely to have access totechnology than their urban counterparts.4 Indeed, less than fivepercent of towns with populations under 10,000 have access tobroadband technology.5 Poor, rural Americans are twenty timesmore likely to be left behind in matters of technology than theirfellow citizens.6 Minorities and the disabled are less likely to owncomputers.7 These disparities persist despite efforts by the publicand private sectors to narrow the gap.8In May 2001, the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force)released its proposals for bridging the global gap. The G8 heads ofstate had created the DOT Force at the Kyushu-Okinawa summitin July 2000 “in a cooperative effort to identify ways in which thedigital revolution can benefit all the world’s people, especially thepoorest and most marginalized groups.”9 According to the DOTForce Report:One third of the world population has never made atelephone call. Seventy percent of the world’s poor live in2. See U.S. Dept. of Com., Leadership for the New Millennium—Delivering onDigital Progress and Prosperity, 3d Annual Report, 3-19 (2000) [hereinafter Deliveringon Digital Progress] (discussing the Clinton Administration’s initiatives in providingdirect government assistance to the technologically disadvantaged, and in encouragingthe private sector to do the same).3. See Henry H. Perritt, Jr., Economic and Other Barriers to ElectronicCommerce, 21 U. Pa. J. Int’l Econ. L. 563 (2000); Bob Rowe, Strategies to PromoteAdvanced Telecommunications Capabilities, 52 Fed. Comm. L.J. 381 (2000).4. See Rowe, supra note 3, at 386; see also J.M. Spectar, Bridging the GlobalDigital Divide: Frameworks for Access and the World Wide Wireless Web, 26 N.C.J. Int’lL. & Com. Reg. 57 (2000) (discussing the need to institute policies designed to easebarriers to Internet usage among persons living in rural communities).5. Molly M. Peterson, Broadband Battle Over Small-Town U.S.A., Nat’l J., June16, 2001, available at 2001 WL 7182298.6. Gephardt Statement on the Democratic E-Strategy for Economic Growth (2/6),U.S. Newswire, Apr. 5, 2001, available at 2001 WL 4141881, at *3.7. See Margaret Chon, Erasing Race? A Critical Race Feminist View of InternetIdentity-Shifting, 3 J. Gender Race & Just. 439 (2000); Jerry Kang, Cyber-Race, 113Harv. L. Rev. 1130 (2000).8. See generally William E. Kennard, Equality in the Information Age, 51 Fed.Comm. L.J. 553 (1999) (discussing the disparity in obtaining Internet access based onrace and income, and the public and private sectors’ efforts to bridge the gap); Mark J.Maier, Affordable Internet Access for All Americans, 6 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 8 (1999)(discussing how government incentives can be used to encourage affordable pricing).9. Digital Opportunity Task Force, supra note 1, at 3.