[governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered, and how?

[Dan Krimm]

Alx,

Ready or not (and in this context, probably not), here it comes.  Such is
the way of the Internet's technical and business evolution, and so it
should be no surprise that it should happen with governance too.

I agree that we (whoever "we" are) are still in a very early learning stage
about Internet governance in general, and I actually think that building a
new "world government" is a particularly bad idea.  I don't know if that is
exactly what you mean by "delusion" but I hope so.

Nevertheless, the Internet by design has a "global footprint" and thus any
"governance" structure set up for it as a whole necessarily *must* be
understood as a "global governance" structure in practice.  This is
*precisely* the danger we face in the IG endeavor.

There is simply no way to avoid the fact that Internet Governance is either
going to spill over into general political World Governance, or else it
must formally constrain itself to policy areas of a strictly technical
nature without allowing technical policies to pre-empt general
non-technical political dynamics and thus political jurisdictions.

This proceeds from the understanding that there is overlap between some
technical issues and some general political issues.  There are: (a) purely
technical issues, (b) purely non-technical general political issues, and
(c) issues that are both technical and generally political.

So the choice I see is this:

 (A) Confine any and all institutions of Internet Governance to purely
technical matters, leaving all matters of non-technical policy (including
non-technical general political ramifications of technical policies) to
other jurisdictions of governance.  For example: Don't try to resolve
trademark disputes or disputes about "morality" of *semantic
characteristics of any kind* within the institutions of IG, because those
are matters of general political import.  This should be formally defined
in the bylaws of any IG institution, and strictly enforced one way or
another, to be determined.

 Or:

 (B) Recognize that policies that may have originated out of technical
considerations may have ineliminable general political ramifications, and
thus any institutions that are set up to address technical policy in the
"expansive" sense will necessarily tread on the ground of "world
governance" and we had better keep that in mind if we wish to avoid
profound unanticipated consequences.

I don't know what the specific resolution is here, and I am trying to learn
more about the options as they are discussed on this list.  All I'm trying
to do here is present a reality that ought to be taken into account one way
or another if the result is to be effective.


So, I don't yet have an opinion on how this translates into specific
relationships of ALAC and NCUC within ICANN, for example (ICANN's domain of
jurisdiction has something to do with this, of course).  But I do think
that it is probably the case that ultimately the stakeholders for an
increasing number of issues that are being addressed in IG venues must
include the broadest definition of the general public, one way or another,
and with some effective manner of representation.

For example:
 * Net neutrality is a matter of general public interest.
 * Affordable access to the Internet is a matter of general public interest.
 * Control over the facilities and processes of information propagation in
general is a matter of general public interest.
 * The overall structure of Internet architecture ultimately is a matter of
general public interest, to the extent that it affects the issues listed
above.

This is not to say that the general public "is interested in" (as in "is
aware of") these issues, but simply that the outcome of these issues
affects the general public in ways that affect their political status
generally, whether they are aware of it or not, and thus they should be
effectively represented somehow in whatever processes determine such
policies.

I'd be curious to hear your direct response to the point I made below,
which I will recopy here for your convenience:

">> ... Secondary effects in society can be profound (such as
>> whether non-users even have the chance to become users in the future, and
>> whether it might be good for society for increasing numbers of people to be
>> able to register their own domain names, and thus have more power to choose
>> among competing service providers in the market)."

Are you saying that no members of the general non-Internet-using (or
non-domain-registering) public have a stake in (gTLD policy or) any policy
that affects Internet access?  I would think that it is fairly obvious that
they do.  So then the question is, in what way can they be *represented*
effectively in the policy-making process (since there are too many of them
to participate directly, and the transaction costs of participation prevent
most of them from doing so anyway, even if they wanted to)?

Bottom line:  Defining who is a deserving stakeholder for any particular
policy topic may indeed depend on the *outcome* of the policy-making
process itself, *unless* all IG institutions formally and strictly confine
themselves to avoiding any policies with any significant non-technical and
generally political ramifications.  But is this confinement really even
feasible and/or desirable in the first place?

This I fairly doubt.  So, what do you suggest doing about it?

This is not so much a "controversy" at root (though there certainly is
controversy surrounding it), but rather it is a very difficult *conundrum*
that deserves to be addressed fully on its own profound terms.

I don't have the answer for it, at this point, but I suggest that
ultimately we cannot avoid finding a workable answer for it if we hope to
do justice.

If, as you suggest, we cannot feasibly tackle this comprehensively head-on
at this stage, then we ought to keep in mind that separate topic-oriented
approaches need to be explicitly, formally, and strictly confined in such a
way that they do not spill over into general political ramifications.  This
would confine ICANN, for example, much more strictly than it has behaved in
the past.  (But who is going to do the confining, and who enforces
violations of that confinement?  Ultimately a political question, anyway.)
But, that may preclude precisely the solutions that might be best for the
general public and the world at large.

You seem to be saying you want "us" to build this in narrowly-drawn pieces
from the bottom up (technically), and I am saying that "we" probably cannot
do this effectively without constant appeal to the bird's-eye-view from the
top down (politically), if only to determine what policy realms to avoid in
the technical policy-making process.

At the end of the day, while I believe everyone here understands that the
whole IG endeavor is quite difficult, it may be that many people here don't
really understand just how *tremendously* difficult this challenge really
is.  We should all be humble in the face of this challenge, which is "not
mocked."

Dan

PS -- One of the positively worst things we could possibly do is "build an
overall encompassing, overarching structure for Internet governance" while
simultaneously claiming (counter to actual fact) that it is really only a
narrowly-drawn institution addressing strictly non-political technical
matters.  There are some here who would claim that this is precisely what
has already been done, and that is why it presents such a profound
institutional threat.  By allowing political criteria to be imposed on
technical policy decisions, but then disavowing the political impact, it
both cripples possible structures of fully public representation while
allowing privileged political forces to establish genuinely political
outcomes under the radar.

What do we do about the technical/political overlap, which is growing every
day?



At 3:44 AM +0000 12/2/07, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>Dan,
>
>great note. I fully disagree at this stage, but it sets one of the key
>points of controversy starkly so I'm glad you've sent it out.
>
>I do not think that we (who "we" anyway?) are ready to build an overall
>encompassing, overarching structure for Internet governance.
>
>I think that we are still in an early learning stage about what the
>problems are, who the people who have to come together for each and
>through which representation, what mechanisms, structures, weights for
>each stakeholder group, etc.
>
>It is still the time to build problem-specific mechanisms, and if needed
>structures, test them, improve them, and then begin to compare features to
>see if there really emerge more general patterns.
>
>The contrary belongs too much or too closely to the "world government"
>delusion.
>
>Yours,
>
>Alejandro Pisanty
>
>
>.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .  .
>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>Director General de Servicios de Computo Academico
>UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
>Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>Tel. (+52-55) 5622-8541, 5622-8542 Fax 5622-8540
>http://www.dgsca.unam.mx
>*
>---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, www.isoc.org
>  Participa en ICANN, www.icann.org
>.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>
>
>On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, Dan Krimm wrote:
>
>> Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 19:35:12 -0800
>> From: Dan Krimm <dan at musicunbound.com>
>> Reply-To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, Dan Krimm <dan at musicunbound.com>
>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
>> Subject: RE: [governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered, and
>>how?
>>
>> In the greater scheme of things, even confining talk to Internet "users"
>> may be too narrow, as everyone in society will eventually be affected by
>> the political ramifications of Internet policy, even if they are not direct
>> users themselves.  Secondary effects in society can be profound (such as
>> whether non-users even have the chance to become users in the future, and
>> whether it might be good for society for increasing numbers of people to be
>> able to register their own domain names, and thus have more power to choose
>> among competing service providers in the market).
>>
>> It is important to understand that whatever *processes* we set up to govern
>> Internet policy are not confined to any specific *topics* of governance,
>> and that a structure set up to govern domain name policy, for example, may
>> be applied to other policies once it has established authority to govern at
>> all.
>>
>> So, when discussing representation of political interests (including the
>> political interests of the general public at large), it may be less
>> effective to break down the realm of governance into topic-oriented
>> sub-realms.  That could allow nefarious structures to sneak in under the
>> radar because they are seemingly being applied to only narrow-interest
>> topics.
>>
>> This is a dangerous strategy, if one is trying to protect the public
>> interest, because a lot of mischief can be done beyond the realm of civil
>> society attention, if CS decides not to pay attention to process as it
>> applies to *all* topics of Internet governance.
>>
>> What we are doing here is *institution building*.  Once the institution is
>> in place and its authority has been firmly established, its application can
>> be reapplied to other topics quite widely.  This is precisely why, for
>> example, gTLD policy *processes* and *authoritative structures* are of
>> concern to the entire general public, and not just domain name registrants.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>> At 8:49 PM -0400 12/1/07, Jacqueline A. Morris wrote:
>>> Can we separate domain name owners from internet users? As George has
>>> reminded us, almost ALL users will never register a domain name. So
>>>maybe we
>>> can leave the domain owners issues aside for a bit and  refer to the users
>>> issues?
>>> For example - if we talk about easy and comfortable access to content
>>>online
>>> for users (the main thing that I think users want), we'd need to definitely
>>> talk about native scripts and local content issues. Pricing of access is
>>> also an issue - if it is unaffordable to get online, then that is
>>>definitely
>>> a user issue.
>>> I think that back and forth about ICANN's structure, how it should have
>>>been
>>> and why what currently obtains is worse than what should/could have been is
>>> far less important than on the ground issues for users.
>>>
>>> Jacqueline
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl at cavebear.com]
>>>> Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 15:20
>>>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; George Sadowsky
>>>> Subject: Re: [governance] Are Internet users powerless or empowered,
>>>> and how?
>>>>
>>>> George Sadowsky wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> At the risk of starting yet another questionably productive thread on
>>>>> this list, I have to comment on your comment below.  I found it an
>>>>> amazing comment, and perhaps symptomatic of why this list is not as
>>>>> productive as it could be.
>>>>>
>>>>> 99.999% of Internet users are not drowning in powerlessness! Instead,
>>>> if
>>>>> they are drowning in anything, they are drowning in a sea of
>>>>> extraordinarily rich information service offerings that they couldn't
>>>>> have dreamed of having access to 10 years ago.
>>>>
>>>> The context in which I use the world "powerless" is in the context of
>>>> existing and future bodies of internet governance.
>>>>
>>>> For example, yes, we users have great power in the marketplace to
>>>> select
>>>> ISP's and the like.
>>>>
>>>> But we users have virtually no voice in the body that extracts over
>>>> half
>>>> a billion dollars (US$) out of the pockets of domain name buyers every
>>>> year and, at the same, time subjects us to the kangaroo court system of
>>>> the UDRP and the privacy-busting Whois.
>>>>
>>>> The fear and concern that I am expressing is that in bodies of internet
>>>> governance - and remember a body of governance is a body that exercises
>>>> a near plenary form of power - that in these bodies, current and
>>>> present, internet users are denied the means to hold that body, and the
>>>> decision makers within it, accountable for its actions.
>>>>
>>>> In other words, my intent is the word "powerless" is interpreted in the
>>>> context of bodies of governance.
>>>>
>>>> 		--karl--
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