Recent years have seen the formation of private sector empires in the online world that hold unprecedented power over how people access information and communicate. Although these tech giants earned their position by developing new and innovative products, and their businesses support the spread of the Internet, the growing power of private sector intermediaries1 over online communications has important implications. The enormous impact their policies and practices have on the exercise of key rights means that they are on the cutting edge of the application of new ideas about the human rights responsibilities of private actors.
An important starting point for any discussion about human rights and the Internet is that human rights standards apply to the online world.