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<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> >
1. In terms of ownership – it is public<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> ><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> Asserting this
ignores the basic reality that most of the components<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> of the Internet are
owned by private individuals and organisations.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>> How would you
assert public ownership in light of this?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>McTim,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>As you would seen from
my email from where you extract this quote, the purpose was to seek out what could
be called as the very essential and defining characteristics of the Internet,
which will help us build the essential public policy principles for it. It is
in this regard that the publicness of the Internet was originally mentioned.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>One must understand that
public is not necessarily, and certainly not in this context, public authorities.
‘Public’ is as opposed to ‘private’, as used in the
term 'public interest', for instance. You may remember that the WSIS defined
the Internet as a global public facility. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>We are talking about the
‘essential nature’ of the Internet. It is a public network, as
opposed to private networks. I think this much is elementary and universally
understood and accepted. It may connect many private networks, but it itself,
in its essential nature, is public. It is like public roads joining private
territories, or perhaps more aptly, the public environment enveloping the
private enclosures. The environment is in its essence public, and of public
ownership. Since Internet is a whole new space and reality, the environment
analogy is perhaps more appropriate. All of these however are obviously inexact
approximations. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>To try to keep it
simple, we can try to understand the meaning of public as against private in a different
and direct way. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>When you think of ‘the
Internet’ do you instinctively feel you have as much right to it as
anyone else? I suspect you, like every one of us, do think so. Well, then
Internet is public. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>It is like when you go
to a public park or library. You strongly feel you have an equal right to it as
anyone else. That defines something as public.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>On the other hand, if
you were standing in front of, say, the building of Microsoft’s head
office you may still feel you can go in, but inside you’d really not feel
you have every and equal right to be there, as much as anyone else. This place
is private. It is known who has greater rights to the place than you have. That’s
true of IT for Change’s office too. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>It Internet were not public,
it has to be private. Are you saying the Internet is private? If it is private,
someone has to own it more than others. Who is it? Well, it is beginning to
happen in the way corporates have started to skew the basic equal characteristic
of the Internet, whereby we did this campaign for protecting the ‘public-ness
and the egalitarian’ character of the Internet. However, the Internet is
still largely public. That’s the point being made. To say it is not public,
is not merely a semantic haggling. It is playing in the hands of those who are
bent on destroying this equal (egalitarian) and public nature of the Internet. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>These distinctions are
important, because they can determine what governance regimes are suitable for
the Internet, and which direction will the development of the Internet take. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>Parminder <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> -----Original Message-----</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah@gmail.com]</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 6:52 AM</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> To: governance@lists.cpsr.org; Parminder</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> Subject: Re: [governance] a very grounded and divergent
perspective on Net</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> Neutrality</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 7:11 AM, Parminder
<parminder@itforchange.net></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> wrote:</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> <snip></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> ></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> ></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> ></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> > 1. In terms of ownership
– it is public</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> ></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> Asserting this ignores the basic reality that most of the
components</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> of the Internet are owned by private individuals and
organisations.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> How would you assert public ownership in light of this?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> --</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> Cheers,</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> McTim</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> http://stateoftheinternetin.ug</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>> ____________________________________________________________</span></font></p>
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