If the American public could elect a governing body for the Internet, candidates would include the pope, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, teachers, ex-hackers and "regular folks," according to the first major study of public attitudes about accountability on the Internet, to be released Monday by the Markle Foundation, a non-profit group that focuses on public policy and technology.
The ever-expanding citizenry of the Internet -- 63 percent of American adults now go online, up from 39 percent in 1998, according to the report -- is not likely to have that opportunity anytime soon. But Markle's year-long inquiry found that Americans would like to have significantly more say in the rules that govern the Internet.
Not only that, but they would like a variety of people and institutions to pitch in, and members of focus groups suggested a range of participants in a hypothetical national commission.
"There is a strong desire on the part of the public to have their values respected as the technology developed, and some markers laid out as to what those values are," Markle's president, Zoe Baird, said. "People are looking for more democratic decision-making in a medium that has such widespread consequences for our personal and civic lives."
That may mean finding a way to wield public influence in decisions about privacy, the quality of information and consumer protection, power now typically left to business executives and technologists who design software, Baird said, because in many ways technology has replaced government as the main regulator of online behavior.
Markle's study, which included telephone and online polling and focus groups of the public and of Internet experts, found enormous enthusiasm for the Internet, with 83 percent of those who use it having a positive view and 79 percent saying it had made their lives easier.
But the zeal was tempered by the view of about half of those surveyed that the Internet is a "source of worry" because of concerns that include pornography, privacy violations and poor connection speeds. Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they did not know whom they would turn to if they had a problem.
Many focus-group participants wished for the equivalent of the safety net that exists for credit-card fraud, a phone number they can call when their cards are stolen or there is a billing error.
Seventy percent said users have to question what they read on the Internet, and more than half -- 54 percent -- said they did not believe they had the same rights and protections online as off.
To some extent, the frustrations are a reflection of the impersonal nature of the Internet. It is hard to imagine a single help line for the myriad problems one can encounter.
Among the experts on the focus groups, a common view was that individual rights carried over to the Internet, but that traditional safeguards, like the ability to size up a store by its location and appearance, do not exist.
The desire to make the Internet more closely mirror the world off-line was underscored by the response to the much debated issue of taxation, where 60 percent said that online purchases should be taxed, despite the efforts of some lawmakers and Web sites to keep the Internet tax-free.
Still, the sharp frustrations amid the general embrace of the Internet raise concern that the medium may not live up to its potential unless the public has a sense of more control over its choices, Baird said.
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