Brin said the threat to freedom of the Internet came from a combination of factors, including increasing efforts by governments to control access and communication by their citizens.
Brin said attempts by the entertainment industry to crack down on piracy, and the rise of “restrictive” walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms, were also leading to greater restrictions on the Internet.
“There are very powerful forces that have lined up against the open Internet on all sides and around the world,” Brin was quoted as saying. “I am more worried than I have been in the past. It’s scary.”
He said he was concerned by efforts of countries such as China and Iran to censor and restrict use of the Internet.
Brin said the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and Balkanizing the Web.
Separately, in an article published in yesterday's Guardian newspaper, dissident artist Ai Weiwei warned the Chinese government that its attempts to censor the Internet would inevitably fail.
Ai, who was held for 81 days last year as police rounded up dissidents amid online calls for Arab-style protests in China, wrote in the British newspaper that new “real identity” rules to curb troublesome microbloggers would only “push the problem to the next generation.”
“In the long run, they (the government) must understand it's not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off - and they can’t live with the consequences of that,” he wrote.
“The people will always have the last word — even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.
“The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that,” he added.
Brin, the 38-year-old billionaire, who was behind Google’s partial withdrawal from China in 2010, disagreed with Ai’s belief that China would have to loosen its censorship laws.
“I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle,” he told the Guardian.
Brin also claimed that Google would not have survived in today’s climate due to the control that Facebook, which is due for a mammoth stock market flotation, exerts over the Internet.
