in its technical concept but not necessarily in legislative, regulatory, management, user and other aspects. Thus legislators currently face the issues of restricting its use, overregulating or influencing the internet, which is contrary to its basic characteristics and may easily produce undesirable side effects. The sensitivity of the internet values makes it even more important to treat them cautiously in national frameworks. In dealing with online content, the state plays a role in protecting children, fighting racism and hate speech, cybercrime and efforts for ensuring a high level of cyber security; the measures taken, however, must be proportionate to the objective. In contemporary society, an increasing share of real life unfolds through or by using the internet, so the question of whether countries should regulate the internet or not is moot. The only question is what and how extensive should such regulation be, so that it will not unduly restrict the development and use of the internet. In principle, restricting the use of the internet is legitimate only if it is in accordance with international norms and standards necessary for the functioning of a democratic society and ensuring human rights, and if it is regulated by legislation. In this spirit, the accepted view is that a general requirement for filtering, blocking, or any discriminatory treatment of the internet traffic is excessive and unacceptable, unless it complies with precise and narrowly defined legal reasons set out above and with the highest legal standards. The fundamental motive for protecting net neutrality is the fact that the driving force of its development is a low entry threshold for new providers of content and services. The global internet network and all its potential users are readily and simply available to them. As a rule, the success of a new business model and new internet content, including the related services, depends only on their innovation and quality. Electronic communication networks that do not treat internet traffic neutrally threaten democracy, non-discrimination, transparency, openness and the freedom of the internet. Considering the influence of the internet on the globalised society, the risk of eliminating the neutrality of the internet is simply too great, which has to be borne in mind when steering its development. Slovenia underlines the importance of preserving open net neutrality for innovation, development of entrepreneurship and digital society and functioning of single digital market. This is why Slovenia advocates strong and clear protection of net neutrality. Slovenia particularly stresses the role of online platforms in the provision of net neutrality. Some online platforms have practically become a part of the internet infrastructure because of their monopoly positions, while their business models include discriminatory treatment of internet content and services. Online platforms can thus eliminate content-related net neutrality ensured at the level of transmission. Therefore Slovenia expressly supports the EC activities in the analysis of online platforms and potential regulation of internet platforms at the level of services and content. Preserving the openness and neutrality of internet content is in the interest of the internet’s development and, with respect to its remarkable impact, also in the interest of society’s development at the national level, so Slovenia will continue to strive for its protection. 5.2 Seeking Synergies As development resources are limited, achieving strategic goals requires the establishment of stakeholder integration at the interdepartmental and cross-sectoral levels that should include enterprises, ministries, public sector, service and content providers, users, education and research DIGITAL SLOVENIA 2020 - Development strategy for the information society until 2020 17