They're also anxious to see that the police power of the state is there to protect intellectual property and fight fraud. The GBDe's plan is to develop policy papers on these issues as rapidly as possible. Task forces are being established to focus on nine substantive areas, including intellectual property, taxes, privacy, and security. To encourage international consensus, each task force includes participants from Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It will incubate new ideas, test them, and an attempt to develop consensus in the business community.
Regional differences are also likely to emerge, though.
Unlike companies in the U.S., which generally favor self-regulation wherever possible, European corporations are far more willing to countenance government involvement in areas such as privacy and identity authentication. Americans have a deep distrust of government. Other divisions are already materializing. Large companies and small companies, for example, disagree on the allocation of World Wide Web addresses. Startups and smaller companies, on the other hand, argue that terms such as these are too common for one company to own automatically on a worldwide basis.