[governance] Re: [CRIS Info] Defending the public and egalitarian nature of theInternet

Mon Dec 1 18:17:35 EST 2008

Anja and all,

  This is nothing new.  Such corporatisation and control of the
Internet has been ongoing for nearly 10 years now, and the
rate of same has been increasing.

  If socilization or social control of the Internet is desired, than
ways and means of paying for that type of control will need to
be determined and than realized.  So far, those factors have been
less than forthcoming, as public funding is either not avaliable, or
other higher priorities for those funds have already been indentified.

Anja Kovacs wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Many people 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, and which is supposed to discuss these
> very issues. The letter exhorts urgent global action to ensure that the
> publicness 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 by emailing to
> anja at itforchange.net by the midnight of 1st December (India time). We
> are eager to have as many signatories as possible to the letter, to
> ensure that we give a strong civil society signal 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 ITUs 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!
>
> Peoples 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS)
> http://www.crisinfo.org/
>
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Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 284k members/stakeholders strong!)
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===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
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