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<TITLE>Some Thoughts on Internet Governance "Policy" and Related Issues</TITLE>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">I’ve been watching the post-WSIS process as manifested in and through these Civil Society e-lists with a considerable degree of interest but also as though at a distance. As I’ve mentioned in many of my earlier interventions in these discussions I don’t see a lot of myself or the issues that concern me or my peers manifested for the most part in these discussions and just now as these discussions are being compiled (by Robert G. particularly) I’ve been reflecting on why this might be the case.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">My conclusion is that I (and a scattering of others) are bringing to this discussion one set of assumptions concerning the nature and role of “the Internet” while most of our CS colleagues are bringing another or several others. To explain, it seems to me that many of those who are most active in these discussions and particularly for governments, the “mental model” of the Internet is as being primarily a marketplace—one where firms and individuals bring their goods and services and where exchange takes place. The challenge from a “policy” perspective thus is to ensure as smooth and equitable an operation of the marketplace as possible and to ensure that everyone (who is interested or able) can participate as might be appropriate. Where this access is interfered with or breaks down (fails), then it is necessary for “policy” to intervene—hence we have the concerns for Spam (sustainability of and trust in the marketplace); privacy (trust in the marketplace); “the coordination and management of Internet resources” (ensuring the physical and technical “sustainability” of the marketplace); IP addressing (ensuring appropriate property rights for branding); multilingualism, Domain Names and network neutrality (universality of access to the market); and the Digital Divide (equitability of access to the marketplace) and so on.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Others see the Internet as a medium or "space" for communications (as in Habermas’ sense of facilitated communication) and thus identify policy concerns with respect to the means by which access is obtained (or not obtained), maintained and enabled (or limited) and hence we have the policy concerns of Human Rights, digital identity, affordability (shared with the “market” model), content filtering and free expression among others.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">What I don’t see reflected anywhere in any of the proposals so far is what is surely the most significant model/role of the Internet (and the one by the way, which is most common in practice if not in rhetoric in the private sector). That is that ICTs and the Internet are in themselves the new means of production, distribution and management. In an "Information Society", where the primary raw material being processed is "information" (in its variety of forms) and where the primary products being produced and distributed are constituted to a very considerable degree of processed information, then the most useful, significant and widely applicable understanding of the Internet and of ICTs in general is as the "machinery" for information production, processing, distribution and management. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">One need only examine any of those firms or organizations which have derived the most benefits from the use of the Internet (or ICTs in general) to see how very much ICTs are an absolutely integral element in the production, distribution and management process. To trot out only the most obvious examples one need only recognize that Walmart, Amazon, e-Bay, Microsoft and Dell have been among the fastest growing global enterprises and that this growth is fueled almost completely through their total integration around their ICT platform.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">When the World Summit was initially conceived (in Minneapolis in 1997?) none of this was very clear and certainly not to the policy makers who were discussing the role of ICTs. The initial narrow conceptualization of the role and significance of the Internet and ICTs was allowed to continue through to the actual Summit itself more, I suspect by happenstance than by design but certainly the almost complete absence of the private sector, labour and the engaged general public in the WSIS process can largely be explained by these initial conceptual limitations.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Having said this, a number of fairly obvious "issues" arise from a policy perspective with respect to the Internet/ICTs as the new means of production:</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Symbol">·<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Ownership and control—what are the rights of ownership and what are limitations on control and ownership of the Internet (and the ICT infrastructure) and how will these limitations be enforced and particularly in support of the public interest;</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<LI><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Facilitating “effective use”—being able to “use” ICTs/the Internet for producing, distributing managing knowledge or ICT enabled services requires much more than simply “equitable access to the marketplace”—it requires a "Community" Informatics ie. training; technical design, service and support; facilitated access to markets/services/suppliers and it requires appropriate structures within the marketplace and both among producers (and consumers). </FONT></SPAN></LI>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Symbol">·<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Facilitating equitable access to the range of “effective uses” including for knowledge production—not surprisingly the 5 firms identified above are both very global and highly national. This combination of global and national (and even local) is a characteristic of ICT enabled production/distribution/management. Most enterprises and individuals/countries have only access to the second two parts of this equation (national and local), for a variety of reasons. However, in the absence of the third element, the global, the true value and benefits from ICTs as enablers of effective use is not achievable. The challenge therefore is to ensure that the means for realizing the global as well as the national and local are available for those with an interest and capacity for realizing such “effective uses”.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Symbol">·<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Managing monopolization in the era of the Internet (also known as the “first” mover advantage”)—how (or if) to respond when an ICT stakeholder is in a position to manage the ICT evolutionary process to its own advantage as for example through establishing restrictive barriers in the area of intellectual property, control over standards setting, price (or feature) manipulation and all not within national boundaries where existing laws might prevail but globally where no laws are currently in place.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Symbol">·<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Positive regulation in support of ICTs and the Internet as public goods and as necessary resources to ensure the public interest (Parminder Singh’s proposal).</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Symbol">·<FONT FACE="Courier New"> </FONT></FONT> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Taxation—current approaches to taxation are based on national regimes and material production systems (perhaps as a consequence however, the shift recently has been away from taxing production to taxing income) but how can an equitable taxation system be established and not simply based on the needs and interests of current effective users of ICTs and the network but to support the interests of all and globally.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">And I am sure that there are others… I would like therefore to propose that among the policy themes for the IGF be one or more of the above.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">I haven't really checked, but I suspect that the issues above only partially if at all can be accomodated within the formal statements of the Summit and thus (by the self-imposed rules of this group and evidently CS in general are not able to be included in the "policy" discussions and yet these and the associated "policy" issues are surely those that are of most long term significance to ensuring well-being and effective citizenship world-wide in an "Information Society".</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Michael Gurstein</FONT></SPAN>
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