[governance] Re: [bestbits] need for regulation ....

Fri Mar 21 06:37:16 EDT 2014

Dear Lee,

The issue of a secret / proprietary search algorithm that may have 
commercial and political implications contra to public interest, is 
clearly out of the remit of 'technical management of day to day issues', 
which a body like ICANN needs to concern itself with. I never mentioned 
ICANN at all in my mails for that reason. Issues such as this (or 
illegal sharing of private information by Vodafone with the spy agency 
of the UK Government, or that of evasion of tax by Internet businesses) 
would come under the remit of the 'global public policy' making which is 
beyond the remit of ICANN.

What I was seeking was a process of global norms building, and if found 
necessary, setting up of global  policy frameworks, recognising the 
extraordinary public interest nature of the search service, (search 
being the key factor organising the worlds information/knowledge for all 
of us). There are parallels that we can take note of; for instance, in 
the case of medicines - the composition of medicines may be sought to be 
protected by pharmaceutical companies as their trade secret, but this is 
not allowed, it is mandatory to provide the complete details of the 
composition on the packaging itself; while on the other hand, such a 
standard may not apply to Coke (as that is not considered to be of such 
high public interest).

Existing UN bodies do take responsibility for developing global norms,  
policy frameworks## / standards of various kinds, WHO for drugs, UNESCO 
for  education and  cultural goods. Often norms building can go into 
treaty making processes, such as UNESCO's treaty on cultural goods, 
whereby cultural goods are considered of special public interest and 
need not fall into normal world trade regulatory frameworks. As per this 
treaty, for instance, countries can have quotas on the number of 
Hollywood films that are allowed to be imported in  a year. Similar 
global norms building, and treaties are required to ensure that the 
current situation where large US based IT trans-nationals are 
compromising public interest for their commercial gains (and political 
aims of the USG) does not persist. (The extra-ordinary hypocrisy in 
their coming  together at WCIT to thwart the possibilities of 
democratisation of the Internet is what I alluded to in my recent post).

The Tunis Agenda envisaged that some of these complex issues would be 
dealt with under the 'enhanced co-operation' processes, which 
unfortunately has been stone-walled by those who have vested interests 
in the status quo.  'Multi-Stakeholderism' has spectacularly failed to 
make even the smallest progress in promoting such public interest, since 
it allows the powerful to stalemate any move in that direction. Many of 
us know how just having a workshop at the IGF on enhanced cooperation 
was so difficult.

The current situation, as I pointed out is untenable, it privileges a 
powerful (and criminal as per Snowden) minority. Global civil society IG 
space like the IGC must work for the development of norms that promote 
the public interest and counter this power.

As a starting point, I would like to call for an agreement on the list, 
that the current situation of the search algorithm being a secret is 
untenable. The practical issues raised by Adam, David and others can 
then be explored for solutions, but can we agree first on the 
proposition that Google search algorithm needs an audit to ensure it is 
not commercially and politically harmful (as explained many times by me).

regards,
Guru
## You have worked on 'framework convention for the Internet' in the 
past as well...recognising the complexity of public policy issues 
relating to the Internet, far beyond what an ICANN can or ought to do.

On 03/17/2014 10:10 PM, Lee W McKnight wrote:
> Hey Guru,
 >
 > As I have previously stated, competition policy is a purview of
 > states, and at global level, organizations like the WTO; and draft
 > treaties like the TPP, like it or not.
 >
 > ICANN can set its own - subsidiary - policies in that arena but it
 > is far more likely the Chinese, Indian, French, EU, and US relevant
 > government agencies will have oversight of Google search effects on
 > market competition - and what a coincidence, all of them have a
 > variety of competition policy inquiries into Google search and other
 > practices going on right now.
 >
 > Of course Best Bits and IGC are free to weigh in on the specifics in
 > each of those cases, and make recommendations for new global public
 > policies, for the global Internet economy also in the competition
 > policy arena broadly speaking.
 >
 > But, I am more than a little unclear, OK I am seriously confused, if
 > you now are suggesting ICANN should weigh in and be a place that can
 > set that level of competition policy. In a hypothetical future
 > out-of-California state?
 >
 > I suggest we are confounding levels of political, and regulatory
 > authority, if we are suggesting that ICANN should substitute, or
 > even have a place at the table, with competition policy matters
 > before the WTO, OECD, TPP, and Indian, Chinese, French, EU, and US
 > governments - to just list the competition policy/regulatory arenas I
 > am aware of where Google practices are in question, there might be
 > more.
 >
 > To end on a positive/speculative note, if you are suggesting a new
 > UDRP-like arrangement whereby ICANN provides/channels
 > multi-stakeholder input into say WTO/EU?/national competition policy
 > inquiries...well, that would be - different : )
 >
 > Lee
 >
 > ________________________________________ From:
 > bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
 > <bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net> on behalf of Guru गुरु
 > <Guru at ITforChange.net> Sent: Monday, March 17, 2014 11:29 AM To:
 > bestbits at lists.bestbits.net; governance at lists.igcaucus.org Subject:
 > Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] need for regulation ....
 >
 > On 03/17/2014 08:20 PM, Adam Peake wrote:
 >> On Mar 17, 2014, at 11:05 PM, Guru गुरु wrote:
 >>
 >>> David,
 >>>
 >>> On 03/17/2014 11:16 AM, David Cake wrote:
 >>>> On 10 Mar 2014, at 6:26 pm, Guru गुरु <Guru at ITforChange.net>
 >>>> wrote:
 >>>>
 >>>>> Dear all,
 >>>>>
 >>>>> Not clear, how in Multistakeholderism, where the private
 >>>>> sector has an equal footing in public policy making, we will
 >>>>> get Google to agree that its search algorithm, as the key
 >>>>> factor organising the worlds information/knowledge for all
 >>>>> of us, needs to be public knowledge, not a commercial
 >>>>> secret. The need for it to be public knowledge stems from
 >>>>> privacy/surveillance concerns, because such fundamental
 >>>>> knowledge ought to be available as 'cultural commons' that
 >>>>> others can take/re-use/revise, fostering competition etc.
 >>>> Indeed. It is particularly unclear because many in civil
 >>>> society, or government for that matter, might oppose it
 >>>> becoming public knowledge. Such a course of action would
 >>>> almost certainly lead to many Google searches returning results
 >>>> ranked according to the most industrious search engine
 >>>> optimisation service customers, rather than having at least a
 >>>> reasonable chance of being ranked in a useful way.
 >>> Adam also mentioned the issue of searches being gamed and I did
 >>> give a response ...
 >> Hi Guru,
 >>
 >> Apologies, I took your reply as agreeing with the points I made,
 >> so I didn't bother to reply further.  You agreed to a high
 >> probability of gaming occurring... and suggested research.  I took
 >> this as you agreeing that you had been too enthusiastic when
 >> stating that Google's search algorithm needs to be public
 >> knowledge.
 > Hardly Adam, for any public policy, there will be innumerable
 > issues/challenges.  the challenge of gaming is obvious and I have no
 >  doubt it needs to be and can be  addressed.
 >
 > By the same logic, free and open source software should have the
 > maximum viruses since it the source code is freely available.
 > Paradoxically, while Windows is plagued with viruses, GNU/Linux is
 > not. One of the reasons given is that, the open source allows many
 > people to study and identify issues and help resolve it... whereas
 > this is not possible with proprietary software.
 >
 > Do you accept that Google keeping its search algorithm has dangerous
 >  public interest implications - we really dont know what is hidden
 > in the code used by millions of users and how it may have malignant
 > code that can serve its commercial (and post Snowden we know how many
 > US IT companies are hand in glove with the USG) political interest
 > of its masters.? If yes,  then you need to think of a public
 > interest based response to this ...  the ball is in your court as
 > well..
 >
 > Guru
 >
 >> Best,
 >>
 >> Adam
 >>
 >>
 >>

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