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<font face="sans-serif">Hi All<br>
<br>
It has been a very interesting discussion on Vint Cerf's op-ed on
Internet as (not being) a human right. I had some conceptual troubles
with the discussion for which reason I stayed out thus far. But Paul's
reinterpreting the discussion gives me a point of departure.<br>
<br>
Two (very different) kinds of people have opposed terming access to the
Internet as a human right. One category is of tech/ Internet-enthusiast
who otherwise argue so much about how the Internet has fundamentally
transformed the world and so on. The other kind are among those who
work with issues of devleopment and poverty and find it a bit
far-fetched to speak of the Internet as a right given the present
socio-economic scenario they witness around them. It is very important
to see that the 'objections' of these two groups are of a <i>very </i>different
nature.<br>
<br>
I think Internet should be seen as a right, but I have sympathies for
the views of the second group above, because I can understand why they
think as they do. They see people around them deprived of such basic
things that to them it looks almost a bit insensitive to speak of the
Internet as a right. However, they have perhaps not given much deep
thought to how the Internet is fundamentally and structurally
transforming social relationship, in a manner that impacts all, whether
on the Internet or not. However, as I said, I do sympathise with this
group of people, and the reason why they are averse to talking about a
right to the internet. <br>
<br>
My real issue is with those who otherwise speak no end about the
transformatory impact of the Internet, and how the Internet is the best
thing to have happened to human beings for a long long time, but are
hesitant to use the terminology of 'rights' vis a vis the Internet. We
need to understand why they do so? I have followed postings of people
like McTim on this list who instinctively draw back from a 'rights'
terminology regarding the Internet, while their own lives seem deeply
steeped in things Internet.<br>
<br>
Let me attempt a simple response to the quandary I posed. The problem I
think with many if not most people of this category/ group is that when
one speaks of 'rights' very soon after one can be expected to speak
about 'law'; and they just kind of hate application of human
(political) law to the Internet. (as if the Internet is not already an
artefact subject to various kinds of human will and interests.) This,
in my view, is the real problem with the 'rights' terminology for this
group. <br>
<br>
They see the Internet purely as a domain of private relationships and
contracts between </font><font face="sans-serif">individuals, who are </font><font
face="sans-serif">somehow seen as automatically and equally empowered
by the technology, which is of course a dangerous myth. This new
'free', 'open' and 'unencumbered' cyberspace that allows myriad private
relationships and contracts is sought to replace the 'social contract'
which underlies our polities and our laws. So of course there is no
need for a social contract or of laws regarding the Internet. Internet
is itself the law giver or rather the law replacer. Which is also why
many of them do not speak of citizens, or people of humans in relation
to the Internet, we have the term 'users' - people defined in relation
to the Internet rather than the other way around. The term 'rights'
simply doesn't sit too well with this world view, other than perhaps a
very abstracted and disembodied version of human rights, released from
their connection with polities and law, the kind that is too often
heard spoken of in Internet governance spaces. <br>
<br>
All of the above is not necessarily a precise critique of the Vint
Cerf's article as such, but these are the thoughts that arise in my
mind on reading it, and the subsequent discussion. When one takes up
the pen, or the keyboard, to write an op-ed with the heading 'Internet
access is not a human right' one would generally have a compelling
reason behind it. Frankly, I havent been able to divine the reason that
propelled Vint in this case. I am sure he was not simply interested in
interrogating conceptual issues around rights, need of horses and the
such. So, why did he really take the trouble to write this article, is
something I am not clear about. What problem was he addressing (as a
techie, such clarity of thought must be native to him)? <br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<br>
</font><br>
On Tuesday 17 January 2012 09:21 AM, Paul Lehto wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAD=1Ovem-oJtxENqSDu2=_qTabHjotc-e8GO5warZ8iUKXkK=g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"> <br clear="all">
It would be odd for an evangelist of the Christian religion, or
any other religion, to argue that people had no right of access to the
"Technology" of the Christian religion - the book known as the Bible.
But Vinton G. Cerf, official "chief Internet evangelist" for Google,
Inc., strangely argued an analogous proposition: That people have "no
right to access the Internet" Mr. Cerf is paid to evangelise for by
Google, Inc. Calling the Internet a mere tool or technology that
enables "real" rights such as free speech, Mr. Cerf apparently
considers anyone denied the Internet by arbitrary government action,
for example, to have been deprived of nothing they have a right to
access. Would a religious "evangelist" take the same attitude about
accessing the Bible, and think that the right to freedom of religion
did NOT encompass a right to access the Bible in either print or
electronic form? <br>
<br>
I find Mr. Cerf's argument to be, frankly, nonsensical. At the
same time, I can readily understand it as a coherent statement of
Google's business position on the future of the Internet when Cerf's
statements are considered side by side with Google CEO Eric Schmidt's
famous statements to the Wall Street Journal in 2010 comparing Google's
classic search engine business with its newer Android-based strategy,
focused on giving Android away to cell phone companies for free,
because of the extremely lucrative market thus made available to Google
to sell targeted ads to cell phone users:<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"
class="gmail_quote">
<p>"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer
their questions," he elaborates. "<b>They want Google to tell them what
they should be doing next."</b></p>
<p>Let's say you're walking down the street. Because of the info
Google has collected about you, "we know roughly who you are, roughly
what you care about, roughly who your friends are." [And, thanks to
Android GPS capabilities, they know where you are, within a tolerance
of about one foot, if you carry an Android "smart"phone.] <br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;">Google's business vision for the
future of the Internet is reasonably clear: They already have
extremely detailed data on each user, and they want to use all of that
data to push ads in front of users allegedly targeted to what Google
"already knows" they want, and sell many "heads ups" to local
restaurants and other "opportunities" in the physical vicinity of
wherever the Android user may happen to be.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">If the above idea is even close to
being correct (and it makes sense of Schmidt's bold claim that we "want
Google to tell [us] what [to do] next") then we can understand why
Google, via their official public face and Internet evangelist Vinton
G. Cerf, would try to evangelize against Internet access rights in the
January 4, 2012 New York Times: <b>Any such "right to access" the
Internet is clearly a potential interference with Google's business
plan to reconfigure the Internet based on what it thinks we want from
the Internet</b>, in Google's sole discretion, based on the voluminous
data Google routinely collects on users.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">You and I may prefer to make our own
discoveries on the Internet, and do our own searches. But Google,
quite literally, thinks it knows better than we do, and even goes so
far as to claim that it's what we really want from Google, in the end:
for Google to tell us all what to do.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Many people object to Google's idea
with fervor, and would much prefer to tell Google <i>where to go</i>,
than to have Google tell them what to do.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">But imagine an aggressive, ad-selling,
data-shaping future google that is choosing so much data for us and
putting it in front of our faces that it can be said that the
"Internet" as we now know it is no longer accessible to us, only an
edited and targeted shadow of the Internet chosen by Google is
accessible to us, as a practical matter, on our devices. This is not
too hard to imagine at all, since most of it is already here. Such a
"personalized" Internet is but a shadow, albeit an arguably
personalized and targeted shadow, of the Internet we know today.
Perhaps (and this is only a maybe) we could still get to the "full
Internet" if we are committed to doing so and know what we are doing,
but to do so we will have to wade past Google's paternalistic
suggestions for what we should be doing next, and past Google's
conclusion that people no longer want "Google to provide them with
information, they want google to tell them what to do."</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><br>
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Clearly, a right to access the
Internet is in tension with, if not in conflict with, Google's business
vision for the future of the Internet. Mr. Cerf's many notable
achievements related to the Internet aside, he indisputably owes a duty
of loyalty to his employer, Google, and in this particular context, Mr.
Cerf is not speaking as a true evangelist for the Internet, he is
speaking out of loyalty to the forthcoming business vision and
profitability of his employer, Google Inc.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Perhaps Google's increasingly
paternalistic vision of Internet users, in which they decide for us
what we should do next, and presume that we don't really want Google to
simply provide information at our choosing, will one day give new
meaning to the phrase Cerfing the Net, which perhaps will be spelled
Serfing the Net, in honor of Vinton G. Cerf's feudalistic exposition on
their new internet reality in which one's rights of access to the
Internet are predetermined, as in feudal days, by the land (or
operating system) one is born on or born into. <br>
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The masters of the universe at Google
are indeed on the very precipice of being the Lords of the Internet,
not evangelists of the Internet. Lords do not simply answer searching
questions, Lords tell us what we should be doing next. Evangelists
hope and pray that ALL will access the Internet or the Bible, but by
saying there is no right of access to the Internet, Mr. Serf is made
himself and fellow executives at Google our Lords, and abandoned his
post as Chief evangelist of the Internet, at Google.<br>
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><br>
</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
-- <br>
Paul R Lehto, J.D.<br>
P.O. Box 1 <br>
Ishpeming, MI 49849 <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:lehto.paul@gmail.com">lehto.paul@gmail.com</a><br>
906-204-4026 (cell)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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