[governance] Re: "gentle" governance of internet tech?

[Parminder]

> That's it for now.  Since I won't be able to get to Rio myself, I guess
> this is my chance to engage the discussion...  ;-)

And a good and important discussion it is. I think Karl's views and those
expressed by Dan here best capture in the spectrum over which IG discussion
must take place. Because I see same or similar 'progressive' concern for
public interest, and need to make structural changes to the status quo which
favours dominant classes. It always is so, so the 'progressive' efforts will
and should go on always, only the context and practical steps needed may
change.

Karl trusts that if we keep out political principles simple and clear  (a
neutral equality of the net to everyone and everything - the end-to-end
principle), and also minimal at present, and seek out best technical
solutions for them, the 'progressive' cause will gain most. Times of strong
technology ferment needs relative freedom from partisan politics to show up
its highest potential, and the new technologies especially tend to provide
the 'edges' better control over the 'centre' only if we leave out too much
motivated interference. 

Dan thinks that it is difficult to so freeze politics, since the dominant
classes won't relent, and will keep at it, eroding 'public interest'
further. So the battle has to be fought mostly in political arenas. 

So long as the a keen commitment to furthering public interest interpreted
in a 'progressive' manner is maintained, and there is readiness to take the
difficult path of challenging status-quos, with a healthy suspicion of and
entrenched power structures (governments, for instance, but also ICANN, if
it shows such tendencies), it is possible to together find working
strategies and practical tactics even while differing in important ways. 

Our proposed IGF workshop on 'governance frameworks for CIR' will seek to do
so, though one suspects that however fair and logical one tries to be, some
people are prone to seeing any such framing of issues as conspiratorial. 

Substantively, I am more inclined to Dan's way of looking at things, but
then Karl comes from a more technical background and I cant set up my mail
client myself, and am more comfortable with social and political discourses
and in working at developmental field projects. 

My problem with the present way of governance of CIRs, for instance, is not
so much about what good or bad they directly yield (at least as yet), but
with the strong, and even somewhat extreme, neo-liberal principles that
underpins them. And entrenchment of such political principles at the heart
of what are the first few strands of the imminently more and more pervasive
global polity is for me very disturbing, and my resistance is directed
against it. These developments influence and shape the very basis and manner
in which our societies will evolve - from local to global levels, and the
devastation caused in taking such directions of evolution will be much much
more than many are ready to see and do something about. 

Just adding a third strand to the two put forward by Karl and Dan (and
apologies if I paraphrase there views wrongly)

Parminder 

________________________________________________
Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change, Bangalore
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 
Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890
Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055
www.ITforChange.net 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Krimm [mailto:dan at musicunbound.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 7:54 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: [governance] Re: "gentle" governance of internet tech?
> 
> While I generally subscribe to most of Karl's comments, this one perked up
> my ears:
> 
> At 1:41 PM -0700 9/17/07, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> ... issues
> >such as access might become non issues if we can oversee and gently
> >govern a few aspects internet technology (such as end-to-end
> >connectivity and service levels) so that it becomes ubiquitous and
> >inexpensive.
> 
> 
> This seems to discount the efforts by telcos and cable cos in the US
> explicitly trying to make Internet access more expensive (by abandoning
> open end-to-end and even eroding the market for flat-fee and unlimited-use
> service).
> 
> How can this fly in the market in the US?  Because broadband ISPs are no
> longer governed by open access/interconnection rules in the US (as remain
> in place many other places in the EU and elsewhere), and thus broadband
> ISP
> competition in the US is "suggestive" at best.  In the US, the open
> access/interconnection policy is determined by the FCC under the authority
> of the Telecom Act which has been primed for re-hashing since last year or
> earlier.  And the FCC and legislature are heavily lobbied by the ISPs to
> influence regulatory policy in this area.
> 
> In short, it is hard for me to see how "we" (who is "we" anyway?) could
> "oversee and gently govern" anything in the area of end-to-end and service
> levels, at least in the US.  There's nothing "gentle" about it whatsoever,
> unfortunately.  It's flat-out war.  It was war last fall in the last
> congress when the Republicans were in the majority and the net neutrality
> movement had to fight Ted Stevens' ("Senator Tubes") bill, and it remains
> a
> fierce struggle this time around because the Democrats have not moved on
> it
> since January (the Senate NN bill has few co-sponsors and remains stuck in
> committee, while the House bill hasn't even been introduced as Ed Markey
> promised).
> 
> FreePress.net is gearing up for a big constituent push for this fall,
> because next year is presidential election year and things generally come
> to a stop.  It will take the mobilization of a huge, active and vocal
> grass
> roots constituency to get this on the agenda before the end of the year.
> 
> IGF in November will be too late to address anything in this cycle.
> Besides, what political authority could possibly impact national
> regulation
> of this sort?  Some of these issues cannot wait for a global authority to
> emerge, and must be addressed immediately in national or more local
> jurisdictions.  Voluntary technical standards can easily be ignored by
> private firms.
> 
> Remember when Netscape simply built whatever HTML functionality it wanted
> into its browsers, W3C and IETF be damned?  When M$FT polluted Java with
> proprietary hooks in its mission to undermine the "middleware" threat to
> its OS market power?
> 
> Now Cisco is building routers for clients who want smart pipes, not for
> any
> standards body that is concerned with open end-to-end dumb pipes.  Whoever
> pays the piper calls the tune, unless the law weighs in on it.  Gentle
> oversight will be set aside.
> 
> 
> Also, "access" requires attention to availability of hardware/software
> (and
> maintenance/upgrade budgets), user training, and locally-relevant content
> as a motivation to get over the biggest hurdles at the outset of customer
> penetration in tech markets.  Open network standards are necessary but not
> sufficient to systematically ensure broad or universal access.  So I don't
> think that ensuring end-to-end and reasonable service levels will
> automatically ensure "digital inclusion" (as it is referred to in the US
> these days, among local advocates for universal access) in a meaningful
> way, all by itself.
> 
> Oh, I *wish* these could be gentle oversight.  But I don't see anything
> gentle about the political wars we are going to continue to have
> surrounding Internet architecture and deployment.  The political and
> commercial stakes are too high, and the public and commercial powers are
> too strong.  They will ignore us or co-opt us, but they will not leave us
> alone.
> 
> 
> That's it for now.  Since I won't be able to get to Rio myself, I guess
> this is my chance to engage the discussion...  ;-)
> 
> Dan
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