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Milton<br>
<br>
My question for which I sought a direct answer </font><font
face="sans-serif">from you </font><font face="sans-serif">was
whether people should not have any legal recourse with an
accountable public governance entity regarding issues concerning
their commercial dealing with some kinds of corporations selling
digital services across borders. This question directly arose from
your assertion in response to the news item on google- taipei
government stand off, which I quote<br>
<br>
</font>
<blockquote><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Local governments have a
lot to do with local things. Or have you forgotten about things
like roads, schools, crime and law enforcement, etc.? Local
govts that try to parasitize virtual businesses tend not to
focus on what they need to be doing. (Milton)</span><br>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></blockquote>
It is clear that you questioned Taipei government's right to do what
it did (calling it parasitizing), when many of us thought that it
was a perfectly legitimate and justified stand of the Taipie
government to safegaurd its citizen's interests. . You
empathetically reasserted your strong opposition to application of
any such local jurisdictions to global sale of digital services in
response to a email by Lee<br>
<font face="sans-serif"><br>
</font>
<blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Keep in mind that the original discussion was not about taxation per se, but about <span class="moz-txt-underscore"><span class="moz-txt-tag">_</span>regulation<span class="moz-txt-tag">_</span></span>. No one in their right mind would support the idea that mere publication of an app by an innovator in, say, Mexico City should make that publisher subject to the regulations of a Thai municipality (and 100,000 other jurisdictions) simply because someone in Thailand accessed it over the internet. That is almost a perfect reduction ad absurdum of territorial government. I reiterate my perhaps blunt and deliberatel;y strong but fundamentally accurate charge that anyone who advocates such a thing is anti-internet, anti-growth, anti-economy and/or has no clue regarding the practical consequences of what they are saying. (MILTON)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
And now you suddenly seem to say that <br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Taipei said
it wanted Android platform users to comply with local
regulations regarding trial periods and refunds. Google said,
if you force us to do that, we will withdraw Android market
service from Taipei.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73,
125);"> To me, <b>that seems fair enough</b> (emphasis
added). An agreement to disagree; a failure to transact. That
should be the end of the story.</span> (Milton)<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal">and, later in the email<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <font color="#3333ff" face="Courier New,
Courier, monospace"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">First, they
(citizens of Taipie) do have recourse. They can insist that
their government apply local regulations</span>.</font>
(Milton)<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
Whereby, now you are trying to give the impression that you never
opposed such assertion of territorial jurisdiction (as long as later
one doesnt whine that Google has therefore withdrawn its services).<br>
<br>
Sorry, Milton, as is evident from your quoted emails, you clearly,
and strongly, opposed any application of territorial jurisdiction on
digital services made available from across the borders. In trying
to respond to my 'legal recourse' question', you cannot completely
reverse that stance since it is this specific stance you took which
alone brought up the question that I posed to you.<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
<br>
<br>
On Sunday 24 July 2011 02:54 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:75822E125BCB994F8446858C4B19F0D71750B1B916@SUEX07-MBX-04.ad.syr.edu"
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Let’s
look at the details of the case. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Taipei
said it wanted Android platform users to comply with local
regulations regarding trial periods and refunds. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Google
said, if you force us to do that, we will withdraw Android
market service from Taipei. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">To me,
that seems fair enough. An agreement to disagree; a failure
to transact. That should be the end of the story. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Those who
are complaining about this result seem to be either
disconnected from economic reality or, at worst,
hypocritical believers in having your cake and eating it,
too. Apparently, they want to tell Google: you CANNOT offer
services here on terms that you find necessary to meet your
needs as a supplier, but if you withdraw service we will
whine about it and imply that you should be forced to offer
service in a locality you do not want to do business in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">There is
a very simple form of governance at work here, it’s called
rational mutual adjustments to local circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">The
Taipei government says, “we will impose regulations on what
you do.” Google says, in response, “well, those regulations
are too costly to us, we shall choose not to do business
there.” This kind of choice occurs in thousands of different
industries in thousands of different ways. You don’t want to
live in a world in which that kind of adjustment is not
possible. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">This
process of choice provides checks and balances on both
players. If Google is too unreasonable in its unwillingness
to comply with local consumer regulations, it will be barred
from many markets and lose out to others. If Taipei is too
unreasonable in its demands on external businesses, it will
only prevent its citizens from getting access to many
valuable products and services. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Please
tell me what is a better alternative?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Should a
local government have the authority to tell a supplier based
in another country that it MUST offer its services in its
locality, under terms and conditions it does not find
profitable or sustainable? Aside from being impractical, it
sounds self-evidently crazy to me, but if it doesn’t seem so
to you consider what would happen if that kind of obligation
were established. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">So,
there’s a company in Hong Kong offering 1 Gb broadband at
US$20/month. I’d like the Syracuse city govt to tell them
they HAVE TO offer it to my home. Never mind the fact that
cost conditions in Syracuse, with US-style suburban homes
spaced hundreds of feet apart aren’t quite the same as HK
high rises, where one fiber can serve thousands of small
apartments. I want my 1 Gb broadband for $20, and I bet
80-90% of other Syracusans do too. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">OK, so
that involves non-transportable physical infrastructure,
rather than virtual services, so maybe you think it’s not a
valid example. So let’s go with local/national regulation
involving a potentially global, virtual service. Let’s say
the national government of China says to Google, “we think
you have the best search engine so we want it here, but we
want it to comply with our censorship regime. So you MUST
offer Google search here, but all your servers serving the
china market MUST be in the country, all your Gmail accounts
MUST provide backdoor access to the public security bureau,
and all search results MUST implement our censorship by
allowing our censors direct access to your results display
process.” Under my preferred regime, Google has the right to
say, “sorry, no deal.” In the Parmindered world, what
happens? They MUST go in? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">So here
is a more direct answer to this question:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family:
"Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="border-width: medium medium medium 1.5pt;
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif";">Do Milton and
others who seemed to have great reservation about
appropriateness of Taipie city government's regulatory
competence in that case still think, after reading about
the case of unilateral withdrawal of google service, still
think that users of these services should have no legal
recourse with accountable public governance entity?</span><span
style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);">[Milton L Mueller] <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73,
125);">First, they do have recourse. They can insist that
their government apply local regulations. This may drive
the multinationals out altogether. Or they can get their
local government to avoid applying those local
regulations, or to adjust them, in order to gain access to
the services. There are two parties at interest here.
There is no requirement to transact at all if either’s
needs are not met. </span><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif";"><br>
<br>
If local or national governments should *not* be the
entity that people should be able to turn to, and these
governments should *not* have the regulatory competence,
who should?</span><span style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);">[Milton L Mueller] <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73,
125);">As usual, you over-dichotomize and -polarize the
options. Our real disagreement is on the nature and scope
of the regulations. You seem to think that any demand
placed on a supplier by a consumer or a government is de
facto legitimate and right. I am saying that there are
constraints. Suppliers of services cannot be taken for
granted as a natural resource, just sitting there waiting
to be milked. People produce Internet services, and the
people who produce them have legitimate incentives and
needs that have to be met, otherwise they will withdraw
their services from the market (or die a slow death in the
market). Governments that assert controls and regulations
in a globalized economy have to face the fact that unfair
or overly burdensome regulations will lead private actors
to withdraw from their market. Full stop. Likewise,
corporations who do things that lots of locally responsive
governments can’t allow them to do will be barred from
many local markets, limiting their growth and profit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73,
125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;
font-family: "Courier New"; color: rgb(31, 73,
125);">What’s wrong with that exchange? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 5.25pt;"><span
style="font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31,
73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 5.25pt;"><span
style="font-size: 11pt;">--MM</span><span
style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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margin-bottom: 5pt;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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