FW: [governance] Rhonda:another data point

[Laina Raveendran Greene]

Ditto to what Lee on historical facts worth noting in objectivity (i.e
without credit or blame) and just to add one more point, there were some
involved in the negotiating of Art 9 of the International Telecommunications
Regulations in 1988, under the World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone
conference in Melbourne, who also meant it to apply to the Internet (ART 9-
allowed for these networks to operate outside the ambit of the "normal"
public infrastructure rules.

Best,
Laina

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee McKnight [mailto:LMcKnigh at syr.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 8:34 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; ronda at panix.com; Milton Mueller
Subject: Re: [governance] Rhonda:

Hi Ronda, Milton, everyone,

I'll agree and disagree with both of you to help clear things up : )

Yes the ITU (and the EU, and the japanese govt to name a few names) were not
friendly to the early net. The EC only in '95 and Japan in '96 ended
policies that were actively hostile to the Internet - and I suppose actively
seeking to stifle it couild be seen as 'regulating' the net from the start.

But the other elephant in the room is of course the US dept of defense and
the various contracts passed on to NSF before the Dept of Commerce and ICANN
came into the picture. In other words the glorious early Internet days were
brought to you by the same folks who brought us...but I digress.  And the
guy I mean institution who ran the name system out of his back pocket back
then was not 'regulated' by the government.
Rather he was paid (his university) by the USG, which is a type of
involvement ; ).  And everyone loves him RIP, etc, and of course I am
certainly not implying there was anything wrong, just noting the historical
facts.

Final correction is the question of how conscious or unconscious was the USG
and other governments signing on to trade in services and specifically
telecom services  liberalization, as to what that might mean for the
Internet. That did indeed open the door to the Internet around the world
going from a resource only accessible by a few academics and other net tech
players, versus the general service it has become.  In my opinion and
recollection the Clinton/Gore admin knew exactly what it was doing by
promoting a 'global information infrastructure' starting in 94. Other
governments saw what was going on and wanted to get in the action too. After
all they were all using the net to communicate about all of this - and maybe
kinda figured others would want to be able to do the same as them.

So give governements credit and blame them as you wish, point is life in the
virtual fishbowl was made possible by the folks who created the tank.

Which gets back to Milton's point in his other note re the framework
convention, and what specifically should be the Internet governance regime
of the future.  Maybe we can refocus on that rather than the past?  What
kind of fishbowl do we want to co--create multistakeholder style, next?

Lee 

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile

>>> mueller at syr.edu 12/8/2006 9:32 PM >>>
Rhonda:
I could explain at greater length: 

If we had convened the ITU in 1991 and tried to pass a resolution
authorizing any operator in the world to offer a global information service
that competed with domestic newspapers, broadcasters and telephone companies
and contained politically challenging, pornographic or otehrwise
unrestricted information content the answer would have been a resounding NO.

Internet globally was built around the liberalization of "value-added
services". Governments liberalized that market because it was considered
(and at the time, was) small and insiginifcant in terms of revenue and
effect on vested interests. Less than 1% of the telecom market at the time.
Through that "stealth" mechanism, and through the liberalization of leased
circuits, budding ISPs were able to form and interconnect.
The
unanticipated and (at the time) completely unregulated addition of WWW and
html and browsers to the system around 1993. 

Govts had no official control of domain name or address allocation; they did
not even succeed in asserting power over ccTLD assignments until after 2000.


You could say that the US government policy of promoting free trade in
interntional telecom services contributed to the development of the
internet. But the US govt had no idea that it was preparing the way for the
internet when it did that, it was more interested in managed informatikon
services of the sort offered by AT&T, and in traditional voice telecom. 
 
Governments as a collectivity had no specific regulatory powers over the
international aspects of the Internet, and they still don't except for
ICANN. The US govt promoted and subsidized the internet as a tiny closed
network for academics and researchers. The agency that made the decision to
open it to the public was not an official policy making organ of the US
government but a research foundation and an informal committee of network
users within the Federal government. It's mutation into a public mass medium
was largely "accidental" and serendipitous.

>>> ronda at panix.com 12/7/2006 6:56:56 AM >>>

On 12/4/06, Milton Mueller <Mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

>We need a new global governance regime and in entering into it we
must
>as a principle be deeply aware of the fact that the Internet's growth 
>and much of its value came from the fact that govts had no regulation
or
>control over how it initially evolved.

The myth that government had no regulation or control over how the Internet
initially evolved is important to put to rest.

The Internet was built under a good form of government leadership.

The problem of the myth is that instead of building on the actual model

that made it possible to create the Internet, the actual practice is thrown
out the window and models are created that have no basis for being with
regard to the Internet.

Instead of paying serious attention to the history and practice of how the
Internet was built, there is the fallacious effort to invent something

that has no connection to the Internet and its origin.

This is what ICANN has done and unfortunately the efforts to challenge

ICANN fall into this same mode. It would be more helpful for those offering
such a challenge to be studying the history fo how the Internet was
developed and considering the implications of this development toward its
future. Following was a talk I gave toward beginning this process:


The International Origins of the Internet and the Impact of this Framework
on its Future

http://ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/nov4talk2.doc 

best wishes

Ronda


Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
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