"Any person who is currently providing, or who intends to provide services under the applications service class licence is merely required to register ...."

This wording is carefully designed to allay fears that are aroused in those who will wonder why this license is necessary, and who make a negative comparison with the Publications Act. The government licensing of newspapers has been disastrous for the printing industry, and relegates Malaysia to the scrap heap of once-free-now-despotic societies.

The announcement, in an attempt to moderate the certain reaction from the internet community and international investors, says:

"Class licenses are a new concept introduced under the act as a means of liberalising the communications and multimedia industry by encouraging more players to enter the market and provide consumers with a wide variety of innovative services at reasonable cost."

Liberalising? No one is fooled. This is an encroachment into the internet, a significant change in the previous policy of non-intervention. The Malaysian government has thus reneged on its pledge to allow the internet complete freedom, without regulation in any form.

The government obviously would not make this move unless faced with a dilemma, and has decided to resolve it in stages. This gradual approach allows strategic withdrawal if the initial reaction is sufficiently adverse, and increased regulation and repression if the stock market and the international investment community are unroiled.

But for the government to gamble in this matter at all, especially at a time of heightened sensitivity, gives a strange suggestion of increasing paranoia in the BN government. This appearance is supported by over-reaction to any public assembly amid a lengthening list of national organizations who oppose the present government leadership.