[governance] Some Thoughts on Internet Governance "Policy" and Related Issues

[Gurstein, Michael]

I've been watching the post-WSIS process as manifested in and through
these Civil Society e-lists with a considerable degree of interest but
also as though at a distance. As I've mentioned in many of my earlier
interventions in these discussions I don't see a lot of myself or the
issues that concern me or my peers manifested for the most part in these
discussions and just now as these discussions are being compiled (by
Robert G. particularly) I've been reflecting on why this might be the
case.

My conclusion is that I (and a scattering of others) are bringing to
this discussion one set of assumptions concerning the nature and role of
"the Internet" while most of our CS colleagues are bringing another or
several others. To explain, it seems to me that many of those who are
most active in these discussions and particularly for governments, the
"mental model" of the Internet is as being primarily a marketplace-one
where firms and individuals bring their goods and services and where
exchange takes place.  The challenge from a "policy" perspective thus is
to ensure as smooth and equitable an operation of the marketplace as
possible and to ensure that everyone (who is interested or able) can
participate as might be appropriate.  Where this access is interfered
with or breaks down (fails), then it is necessary for "policy" to
intervene-hence we have the concerns for Spam (sustainability of and
trust in the marketplace); privacy (trust in the marketplace); "the
coordination and management of Internet resources" (ensuring the
physical and technical "sustainability" of the marketplace); IP
addressing (ensuring appropriate property rights for branding);
multilingualism, Domain Names and network neutrality (universality of
access to the market); and the Digital Divide (equitability of access to
the marketplace) and so on.

Others see the Internet as a medium or "space" for communications (as in
Habermas' sense of facilitated communication) and thus identify policy
concerns with respect to the means by which access is obtained (or not
obtained), maintained and enabled (or limited) and hence we have the
policy concerns of Human Rights, digital identity, affordability (shared
with the "market" model), content filtering and free expression among
others.

What I don't see reflected anywhere in any of the proposals so far is
what is surely the most significant model/role of the Internet (and the
one by the way, which is most common in practice if not in rhetoric in
the private sector).  That is that ICTs and the Internet are in
themselves the new means of production, distribution and management. In
an "Information Society", where the primary raw material being processed
is "information" (in its variety of forms) and where the primary
products being produced and distributed are constituted to a very
considerable degree of processed information, then the most useful,
significant and widely applicable understanding of the Internet and of
ICTs in general is as the "machinery" for information production,
processing, distribution and management. 

One need only examine any of those firms or organizations which have
derived the most benefits from the use of the Internet (or ICTs in
general) to see how very much ICTs are an absolutely integral element in
the production, distribution and management process. To trot out only
the most obvious examples one need only recognize that Walmart, Amazon,
e-Bay, Microsoft and Dell have been among the fastest growing global
enterprises and that this growth is fueled almost completely through
their total integration around their ICT platform.

When the World Summit was initially conceived (in Minneapolis in 1997?)
none of this was very clear and certainly not to the policy makers who
were discussing the role of ICTs.  The initial narrow conceptualization
of the role and significance of the Internet and ICTs was allowed to
continue through to the actual Summit itself more, I suspect by
happenstance than by design but certainly the almost complete absence of
the private sector, labour and the engaged general public in the WSIS
process can largely be explained by these initial conceptual
limitations.

Having said this, a number of fairly obvious "issues" arise from a
policy perspective with respect to the Internet/ICTs as the new means of
production:
	*	Ownership and control-what are the rights of ownership
and what are limitations on control and ownership of the Internet (and
the ICT infrastructure) and how will these limitations be enforced and
particularly in support of the public interest;
*	Facilitating "effective use"-being able to "use" ICTs/the
Internet for producing, distributing managing knowledge or ICT enabled
services requires much more than simply "equitable access to the
marketplace"-it requires a "Community" Informatics ie. training;
technical design, service and support; facilitated access to
markets/services/suppliers and it requires appropriate structures within
the marketplace and both among producers (and consumers). 
	*	Facilitating equitable access to the range of "effective
uses" including for knowledge production-not surprisingly the 5 firms
identified above are both very global and highly national.  This
combination of global and national (and even local) is a characteristic
of ICT enabled production/distribution/management.  Most enterprises and
individuals/countries have only access to the second two parts of this
equation (national and local), for a variety of reasons.  However, in
the absence of the third element, the global, the true value and
benefits from ICTs as enablers of effective use is not achievable. The
challenge therefore is to ensure that the means for realizing the global
as well as the national and local are available for those with an
interest and capacity for realizing such "effective uses".
	*	Managing monopolization in the era of the Internet (also
known as the "first" mover advantage")-how (or if) to respond when an
ICT stakeholder is in a position to manage the ICT evolutionary process
to its own advantage as for example through establishing restrictive
barriers in the area of intellectual property, control over standards
setting, price (or feature) manipulation and all not within national
boundaries where existing laws might prevail but globally where no laws
are currently in place.
	*	Positive regulation in support of ICTs and the Internet
as public goods and as necessary resources to ensure the public interest
(Parminder Singh's proposal).
	*	Taxation-current approaches to taxation are based on
national regimes and material production systems (perhaps as a
consequence however, the shift recently has been away from taxing
production to taxing income) but how can an equitable taxation system be
established and not simply based on the needs and interests of current
effective users of ICTs and the network but to support the interests of
all and globally.

And I am sure that there are others... I would like therefore to propose
that among the policy themes for the IGF be one or more of the above.

I haven't really checked, but I suspect that the issues above only
partially if at all can be accomodated within the formal statements of
the Summit and thus (by the self-imposed rules of this group and
evidently CS in general are not able to be included in the "policy"
discussions and yet these and the associated "policy" issues are surely
those that are of most long term significance to ensuring well-being and
effective citizenship world-wide in an "Information Society".

Michael Gurstein

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