[governance] Defending the public and egalitarian nature of the Internet

[Anja Kovacs]

Dear all,

Many of us tend to take the commons and the public nature of the 
Internet for granted. However, increasing corporatisation and control of 
the Internet are strongly threatening these fundamental characteristics 
of the Internet as we know it. In this context, six Indian civil society 
organisations, have proposed an open letter to the UN Internet 
Governance Forum which meets for its third annual meeting between 3rd 
and 6th December in Hyderabad. The letter exhorts urgent global action 
to ensure that the public and the egalitarian nature of the Internet are 
preserved as its essential features. The possibilities of democracy, 
equity and social justice in our societies will be significantly 
impacted by the extent to which we can achieve this objective.

The proposed letter is pasted below. If you and/or your organization 
would be happy to endorse this letter, please indicate so in response to 
this email by the midnight of 4 December (India time). It would be 
wonderful if we could include your name in the list of signatories, and 
give a strong signal from civil society in India and abroad on these issues.

The proposed open letter can also be accessed at 
http://www.itforchange.net/component/content/article/195-igf-open-letter.html 


Best wishes,
Anja

------------------------------------------------------------
*
*
* An Open Letter to the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) *
* for its 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th 
December, 2008 *
*

The IGF must ACT NOW against the threat to the
public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet *



The undersigned wish to express their deep concern that the UN Internet 
Governance
Forum (IGF), created by the World Summit on the Information Society in 
2005 as an
Internet ‘policy dialogue’ forum, is largely failing to address key 
public interest and
policy issues in global Internet governance – including that of 
democratic deficit.

*Who shapes the Internet, as the Internet shapes our new social context?*
The Internet represents the single most important technical advance of 
our society in a
long time, so much so that it defines a new emerging social paradigm. 
The basic
characteristics of the Internet determine the contours of the emerging 
social order in
many important ways. The Internet was conceived as, and still largely 
is, an extensive
communication system which is democratizing, and has little respect for 
established
social hierarchies. Interactions and associations built over this new 
‘techno-social’
system have, therefore, held the promise of a more egalitarian society.

The era of innocence of the Internet however appears to be fast 
approaching its end.
Today, the Internet of the future – the very near future – is being 
shaped insidiously by
dominant forces to further their interests. (See the fact-sheet on the 
following page for
some illustrations of this.) Unfortunately, global policy forums have 
largely failed to
articulate, much less act on, crucial Internet policy issues, which 
concern the
democratic possibilities for our societies.

*The IGF needs to act now!*
As the Internet Governance Forum convenes for its third annual meeting, 
between 3rd
and 6th December, 2008, in Hyderabad, India, it must take immediate 
steps to anchor
and discuss important global public interest and policy issues involved 
in Internet
governance. If it does not act now, it may get seen as a space that only 
provides an
illusion of a public policy dialogue, and, consequently, as being 
co-opted in furthering
the agenda of dominant forces that are shaping the Internet as per their 
narrow
interests. *We therefore strongly urge the IGF to directly address the 
following key
global public interest and policy issues:

1. Increasing corporatisation of the Internet
2. Increasing proprietisation of standards and code that go into 
building the
Internet
3. Increasing points of control being embedded into the Internet in the 
name
of security and intellectual property violations
4. Huge democratic deficit in global Internet governance *

We exhort the IGF to adopt clear directions for engaging with these 
crucial public
policy issues. The IGF should come out with a clear work plan at its 
forthcoming
meeting in Hyderabad to address the four key areas listed above.

The global community – comprising not only people who currently have 
access to the
Internet, but also the un-connected billions who are being impacted by 
it nevertheless
– will judge the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the IGF in terms of 
what progress it
is able to make on these issues.
*
Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
Free Software Foundation - India
IT for Change, Bangalore
Knowledge Commons, New Delhi *

*For endorsements and/or more information, please contact* Anja Kovacs
email: anja (at) itforchange.net, tel: +91 80 266554134, mobile: +91 
9611747212

------------------------------------------------------------
* Information Sheet

How the Public-ness and Egalitarian Nature of the Internet is Threatened
Some Examples

Corporatisation of the Internet*
Largely unsuspected by most of its users, the Internet is rapidly 
changing from being a
vast ‘public sphere’, with a fully public ownership and a 
non-proprietary nature, to a
set of corporatised privately-owned networks.

On the one hand, telecom companies are carving out the Internet into 
privately-owned
networks – controlling the nature of transactions over these networks. 
They seek to
differentially charge content providers, while also building wholly 
private networks
offering exclusive content relay services. Developments like video/TV 
over Internet
Protocol and the provision of controlled and selective Internet services 
over mobiles
are contributing to increasing network-operators’ control over the 
Internet, with a
corresponding erosion of its public-ness.

On the other hand, the commons of the Internet is also being overwhelmed 
and
squeezed out by a complete domination of a few privately owned 
mega-applications
such as Google, Facebook, Youtube etc.

Proprietarisation of standards and code that build the Internet
One of the main ways of appropriating the commons of the Internet is 
through the
increasing use of proprietary and closed standards and code in building 
the Internet
system. Such appropriation allows the extortion of illegitimate rent out 
of the many
new forms of commons-based activities that are being made possible 
through the
Internet.

Embedding control points in the Internet
A growing confluence of corporatist and statist interests has led to the 
embedding of
more and more means of control into the Internet in a manner that greatly
compromises citizens’ rights and freedoms. Whether it is the pressure on 
Internet
Service Providers to examine Internet traffic for ‘intellectual 
property’ violations; or
imposition of cultural and political controls on the Internet by states 
within their
boundaries; or ITU’s work on IP trace-back mechanisms; or the tightening 
of US
control over the global Internet infrastructure in the name of securing 
the root zone file
and the domain name system, these new forms of controlling the Internet 
are being
negotiated among dominant interests away from public scrutiny and wider 
public
interest-based engagements.

Democratic deficit in global Internet governance
The current global Internet governance regime – a new-age privatized 
governance
system professing allegiance mostly to a single country, the US – has 
proven to be an
active instrument of perpetuation of dominant commercial and 
geo-political interests.
Lately, OECD countries have begun some work on developing public policy 
principles
that, due to the inherently global nature of the Internet, can be 
expected to become
globally applicable. It is quite unacceptable that OECD countries shirk 
from discussing
the same public policy issues at global public policy forums like the 
IGF that they
discuss among themselves at OECD meetings. Apparently, developing 
countries are
expected to focus on finding ways to reach connectivity to their people, 
and not burden
themselves with higher-level Internet governance issues!

People’s and communities’ right to self-determination and participation 
in governance
of issues that impact their lives should underpin global Internet 
governance.

-- 
Dr. Anja Kovacs
Senior Research Associate

IT for Change
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities
Tel: (00-91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890

www.ITforChange.net
www.IS-Watch.net
http://India.IS-Watch.net 

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