[governance] Net neutrality & IG - a proposal to the IGC

[Vittorio Bertola]

Milton Mueller ha scritto:
> The meaning of NN in this context is not entirely clear. At its best,
> Net Neutrality is about maintaining that complementary relationship
> and protecting it against certain (real or imagined) threats. At its
> worst, it is a rather unproductive replay of the US model of
> regulated unbundling of networks, which devolved into microregulation
> and court battles. I prefer discussions to revolve around concepts of
> "nondiscrimination", but admit that NN is a better PR term. Given the
> rootedness of these issues in domestic telecom policy laws,
> regulations and institutions, however, I am confused as to how a
> nonbinding global discussion forum would be able to make a
> contribution in this area.

I think that the best contribution would be a sort of principle 
recognition of what you say, i.e. the importance of keeping a balance 
between the freedom for private parties to communicate and to innovate, 
and the need for the network to be one, open, and publicly sharing its 
basic elements. Network neutrality should mean, for example, that 
private entities are encouraged to fight through their ingenuity to gain 
advantage positions in one of the spots of the value chain(s) of the 
network, but should not be allowed [too much] to use those positions to 
break the unity of the network or to reduce others' freedom to act or to 
alter competition in other spots.

This then involves countless situations, not just last mile & provider 
control on content, but also the Apple / iTunes type of situations, and 
even Microsoft / WindowsMedia or Microsoft / IE - but also SiteFinder 
(eg Verisign using a monopoly position at the DNS protocol level to gain 
an advantage position at the application protocol level).
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...
_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance