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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> [governance] IT
for Change's background paper for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) <st1:place
w:st="on">Rio</st1:place> - 2007</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>From the background paper:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>"It
is therefore suggested that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), the public body in-charge of allocating Internet domain name
spaces, should carve out one or more TLDs exclusively for public domain
content, say, .pd. Such a domain name space should be run by ICANN itself,
directly or through a separate non-profit entity funded by ICANN." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Ah,
Parminder! Your vision remains irretrievably statist and old-left and you have
learned nothing from the past 50 years. This is the conclusion I draw from your
manifesto.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Apparently,
you believe that you cannot have a public domain unless it is run by a
centralized governmental authority and funded through tax revenue. You seek to
recreate, at a global level, the redistributionist national state of social
democracy....without the democracy or a constitution preserving individual rights.
Yikes!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>And
then, after turning all such power over to a centralized, remote monopolistic
entity you will be completely bewildered when the following perfectly predictable
results occur:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> *
ICANN starts to attach conditions to what you can do in .pd, which it can
enforce quite well as it controls both access and the purse strings<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> *
redistribution starts to go from the poor and less privileged to the privileged
as special interests converge on the central authority<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> *
the inefficiencies and remoteness of the central authority become unbearable<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> *
diversity and competition are snuffed out in order to preserve and protect the
political bargains made by the centralized regime, so no disruptive
technologies like the internet are permitted to come along again. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Hooray,
you will have recreated the public telephone monopolies of the 20th century!
Only on a global scale! What an achievement! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>It's a
mistake to see public open information as constituting a sector completely
separate from and hostile to private markets. Yet this type of rhetoric
pervades your statement. The two are interrelated and interdependent, and often
mutually supporting. There are all kinds of public domain information available
on the internet, supported, developed and promoted by diverse sources:
everything from universities to foundations to local govts to slightly dodgy
P2P sites. This is not to say that we don't have a legitimate battle over the
institutional regime for intellectual property, which is absurdly biased and
(contrary to your rhetoric) not a market solution at all but a very heavy
handed form of state intervention in the economy. Why not promote the GPL or CC
approach, using contractually contructed commons, which can coexist with the good
aspects of a competitive market. Always puzzles me why you seem to hate the
market so much when in the telecom/internet sector it has delivered such
advances in countries such as....<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>"The
current surge in growth of telecommunications use in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is in stark contrast to the
stagnation of previous decades. Telephone penetration nationwide inched up to
only 2 per cent of the population in the 50 years following independence in
1947. But industry reforms [i.e., market liberalization] launched in 1998 have
propelled penetration to 19 per cent in May."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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