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

[dan at musicunbound.com]

> Dan Krimm wrote:
>
>> I agree that we (whoever "we" are) are still in a very early learning
>> stage
>> about Internet governance in general,
>
> Some say that governance of matters related to internet is new.  Is that
> really the case?  Many of these same issues came up with telephony, and
> before that, with telegraphy,

Sure, there are a lot of precedents that can and ought to apply to IG.  My
favorite is the principle of common carriage as applied to telephony
(common carriage is my preferred definition of "net neutrality" in
principle, whatever details are required to get us to "nondiscrimination"
in terms of gatekeeper interference with transit).

That said, I agree with Alx that there are some important aspects that are
new about the Internet, and chief among them in my mind is the global
footprint, which seems to be causing most of the the problems with respect
to confusion (and opportunity) over governance authority.

It is precisely the international aspect that has constituted most of the
terra nova in network regulation, and locating new governance institutions
in international space and defining their range and authority is the
challenge here.  While there are precedents in international governance
such as the UN, WIPO, even the establishment of the EC/EU regional
governance process, deciding exactly how this particular jurisdiction
should be handled may not necessarily derive directly and without
modification from any precedents.

Then, again, maybe we don't have to invent a whole new wheel (just a new
spoke or two), and it might make a good deal of sense to appeal to
existing governance structures such as they are already in place, to the
extent that they might be productively applied to the specific needs of
the Internet.  The more we try to create from scratch, the more we are
doing exactly what Alx is complaining about: creating new "world
government" that may be unnecessary (and in some respects inferior to
existing precedents).

It may not be all that novel a challenge in principle, but that makes it
no less challenging in practice.  To the extent that there *is* new ground
being covered here, I would allow that we are at any early stage, and the
challenges are not insignificant.  The devil is most certainly in the
details, and those details are what is so contentious.

Dan


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