[governance] IGP Alert: "Net Neutrality as Global Principle for Internet Governance"

[Bertrand de La Chapelle]

What Vittorio raises below is exactly what Google is facing in Brazil (of
all places) with its Orkut social platform abused by some members for
illegal postings (child porn and alia).

See :
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9003739

By the way, Orkut servers are hosted in the US, not Brazil. And Google
finally complied, apparently after threats from the Brazilian authorities to
close Google's activities. I suppose Rio will be an interesting place to
discuss the issue and get the two sides of the story, for instance in the
workshop on "Privacy in new internet services."

Best

B.


On 11/7/07, Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu> wrote:
>
> Dan Krimm ha scritto:
> > Interesting, I have not directly received the email response I sent out
> at
> > 13:30 pm PST, though I see from the web interface that it has been
> posted
> > to the list, and I see Milton's later response.
> >
> > Apparently some algorithm running between the listserv and my email
> server
> > decided that this conversation was to be filtered out (presumably as
> > "spam").  Too many references to a certain "offensive" subject matter, I
> > guess.  I don't know how many people received it.
> >
> > Or maybe I was just too long-winded...  ;-)
> >
> > So, with respect to:
> >
> >> Ok, I've not read the paper yet, but here is the Usual Question: let's
> >> say that the government of XYZland wants to prohibit access to
> [certain]
> >> content to its citizens, would that be inhibited by your
> >> definition of network neutrality?
> >
> > Bottom line: what Milton said.
> >
> > In my own words:  "The distilled (if not simple) answer is that laws to
> > establish prior restraint on data transport (if that's what you mean by
> > "prohibit access") would violate net neutrality, but laws to prosecute
> > carve-outs from freedom of expression ex post ("prohibit distribution")
> > would not.  Under ex post rules, common carriers are not liable for
> > distribution of unlawful content over their platforms."  [And to be
> clear,
> > net neutrality is a form of common carriage, which has very deep roots
> in
> > English Common Law.]
>
> Would carriers be liable if they knew?
> For example, let's say I am a carrier and one of my users hosts nazi
> stuff on a website at home, connected through his DSL connection.
> Someone comes and warns me about that. Should I be allowed to terminate
> the contract? Would I be liable if I do? Would I be liable if I don't?
>
> And where do platform for user-generated content fit in your plan? Would
> Youtube be responsible for illegal videos? (I'm not thinking of IPRs,
> rather of racist videos, violent videos etc.) At least after getting
> proper notice? From which authority?
>
> From one point of view I totally agree with you, ex post enforcement is
> the way to go, ex ante censorship - even when required by law - is prone
> to terrible misuse. However I wouldn't want to get to the extreme of
> "irresponsible carriers", who refuse to cooperate in shutting down
> malicious services. Of course you would need some due process, but spam
> and botnets and all sorts of bad stuff thrive on irresponsible carriers
> who do not feel the need to abide by their duty of good netizens.
>
> In general, most of the world doesn't have a first amendment and doesn't
> appear to want one - actually, many citizens scream and ask their
> governments for more ex-ante censorship of the Internet. How to make the
> two visions coexist will be a challenge.
> --
> vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
> -------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
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-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exupéry
("there is no better mission for humans than uniting humans")
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