[governance] What is Network Neutrality

Sat Jan 10 09:00:36 EST 2009

I haven't been following this discussion as closely as I could have (being
pre-occupied with more immediate issues) but I must say that I see much
value in the approach suggested by George and Carlos which shifts the
discussion away from semantic/technical issues of the definition of NN and
towards the underlying (overarching) questions of the possible significance
of NN from a user/civil society perspective.

It seems to me that approaching NN from the perspective of technical
definition is likely to be something of a waste of time (over the longer
term) since what NN will mean (and how it can be managed/or not) will depend
on transient technical capacities and designs.

The underlying/overarching issues/principles of Internet
governance/management (or not) is surely what needs to be addressed and in
that I'm wondering whether an approach based on notions of the Internet as a
"public trust" might not be the direction to look.  Identifying/prescribing
something as a "public trust" has a long history dating back for example to
the legalization of notions of a public commons where there is a need to
develop a legal framework to govern on-going processes of decision making in
araes where there is an overarching public interest but where there are also
on-going elements of private interest, government involvement and so on and
so on.

The Law of the Sea is one such area globally but many individual countries
have legilsation for managing of areas where the public interest requires a
management framework to determine an appropriate balance between competing
local private, group and public interests.

If anything in our time can be identified as a global "public trust" surely
it is the Internet and developing strategies for managing and governing of
this would provide a framework within which the transient issues and
competitive interests underlying NN among others could be worked out in some
kind of way supportive of the overall public interest.

MBG

-----Original Message-----
From: George Sadowsky [mailto:george.sadowsky at attglobal.net] 
Sent: January-08-09 5:02 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Carlos Afonso; Parminder
Cc: McTim; Steve Anderson; Milton L Mueller; Michael Gurstein; Brian Beaton;
isolatedn at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [governance] What is Network Neutrality

All,

I like very much Carlos' suggested approach of focusing on net 
neutrality.  In addition to addressing edge-content manipulation by 
ISPs for whatever reason, it addresses the issue where (1) XXX is a 
government, and packets in one or both directions may just end up in 
the gulag (and sometimes with their senders and recipients, too!); 
and (2) the potentially more beneficial case where SIPs are trying to 
do spam control or other damage control of some kind.  Note that this 
would also diversion of traffic to alternate recipients, or simply 
inspection of traffic in transit (e.g. the Great Chinese Firewall)

There are, of course, different definitions of net neutrality, and 
there are some thoughtful and challenging papers that address the 
subject.  It's probably worth at least establishing and contrasting 
definitions, but more important, understanding what they imply for 
users in areas such as privacy, confidentiality, and accuracy.  I 
agree with Carlos in that much of what I've seen does not concentrate 
upon implications for the user.

I have never seen from an ISP a clear statement by an ISP of what the 
ISP does with respect to traffic manipulation (if anything), and I 
would think that a reasonable goal should be to establish a framework 
that allows/requires an ISP to declare, in simple language or 
languages, its policies with respect to content manipulation and 
delivery.  This is most necessary and useful at the local level, 
where there is one path to the user's computer.  Although higher tier 
ISPs have the capability to make the same declaration, it's not 
useful to the user in that the routes traversed by packets are likely 
to belong to multiple carriers and in theory may even vary, packet by 
packet.

This is a REAL Internet governance topic.

Regards,

George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 12:34 PM -0200 1/8/09, Carlos Afonso wrote:
>Regarding the growing drive for doing ever more complex analyses under 
>the "net neutrality" umbrella, I would recommend Sandvig's article 
>(unfortunately, the English version is available for a price at 
>http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mcb/272/2007/00000009/F0020002/ar
>t00012),
>which we have just published in Portuguese in our magazine poliTICs
>(www.politics.org.br). If you can manage Portuguese, please download the
>PDF version under a CC licence from the site.
>
>In reading the recent contributions (including Sandvig's), I feel most 
>if not all of them do not take the user approach to NN in 
>consideration. I mean, I am sitting at a home in X city in Y state in Z 
>country using XXX ADSL operator and such and such things which seem to 
>reveal packet manipulation of some sort on the part of the XXX operator 
>is happening. How do I deal with it, what are the legal/regulatory 
>handles (or lack
>thereof) I can use to protect myself against such manipulation, what
>political involvement I should consider to change this (thinking of the
>brainers who try and write action-oriented papers) and so on.
>
>However, in any case and whatever the approach, I insist in considering 
>NN (whatever the name you wish to choose for it) a key topic for IGF.
>
>frt rgds
>
>--c.a.
>

-----------------<<snip>>-----------------------

-- 

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