[governance] Net neutrality: Definitions

Tue Aug 17 05:22:24 EDT 2010

Karl,

 > But finally, this whole thread started when someone said that the 
phrase "public internet" was the whole internet.

This goes back to definitions, that we started to attempt.

One can call any traffic carried over IP as Internet, and to me you seem 
to think so. (Please correct me if I am wrong).

Verizon- Google uses the term non-Internet for IP traffic which is 
carried through entirely private agreements, and public Internet for IP 
traffic which is subject to certain levels/ kinds of universal access, 
transmission etc - which we may call as bound by a 'public contract', or 
by some degree of publicness.

I agree with this separation of meanings between non-Internet and the 
Internet as a public space/ entity. However, as argued earlier, degrees 
or manners of publicness characterizing a public space/ entity is 
different in different contexts - like public parks, public roads, 
public schools, public utility, public universities etc. Not all - for 
instance, in many cases public utilities - are owned or operated by a 
public agency. Such different uses of the term 'public' does not take 
away its meaning.

There can be private enclaves within a public space, or the latter can 
be connecting private spaces. For instance, a private conversation in a 
public park and a road connecting houses respectively. In the case of 
the Internet, similarly, the publicness of the Internet does not 
overrule the privateness of an email carried by it, and also Internet of 
course does connect private networks, including those using IP.

In this context, like those who wrote the Verizon-Google agreement, I am 
completely able to understand the meaning of Internet as a 'public 
Internet'.

However, the agreement makes distinction between the levels of (or 
nature of) publicness of the wired Internet and wireless and I do not 
agree with this distinction.

You yourself speak of, what i see as, a public Internet in your email.

 >I suggest that absent some sort of expropriation that the best you 
could possibly achieve is some sort of >non-discriminatory 
common-carriage regime to defined classes of service but that different 
classes of service would >come at different prices.

Such a common carriage network has traditionally been called as a public 
network as in '/public switched telephone network', even when operated 
by private operators. /

The real problem is with a narrow way of looking at the meaning of 
public, which simply does not hold in the present discussion, and is 
IMHO only succeeding in making the discussion on public interest 
regulation of the Internet even more confusing .

Quoting from one of your earlier emails

 >However, one can take an alternative view and look at the term "public 
internet" to describe only that portion of the net >that is owned or 
operated by a public entity.

Parminder

On Tuesday 17 August 2010 01:51 PM, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> On 08/16/2010 08:21 PM, Paul Lehto wrote:
>> On 8/16/10, Karl Auerbach<karl at cavebear.com>  wrote:
>>> Given that, at least in the USA, well over 90% of the net, and perhaps
>>> closer to 99%, is owned by private entities, a policy that defines net
>>> neutrality on a non-privately owned/operated "public internet" would be
>>> a policy of very limited scope.
>>
>> Your focus on ownership to the exclusion of other factors is
>> misplaced.  IN the last few days, I attended a "county fair" held on
>> private land ...
>
> I am intrigued by your attempt to equate use of private land by 
> invitation or contract with the conveyance of packets over a privately 
> owned and operated wire and through privately owned and operated routers.
>
> I don't find it a compelling analogy.
>
> Let's begin with the ultimate private right, the right to refuse.
>
> Are you saying that a provider *must* carry your packets?  That the 
> carrier must remain in existence, even to its bankruptcy to convey 
> your packets?  That would be absurd.  And, if it were required, it 
> would mean the speedy end of the internet.
>
> Or are you saying that a provider must give non-paying non-customers 
> the same access to its facilities as paying customers?  That would 
> seem to be a quick road to provider insolvency.
>
> I have routine blocks against certain people reading my privately 
> constructed, privately operated, and privately hosted websites.  And I 
> have similar blocks against certain sources of undesired email.  If I 
> blocked you you are suggesting that somehow I would be violating 
> denying your rights on the internet.  Needless to say, absent some 
> special relationship or contract, neither I nor anyone else has any 
> such duty to you.
>
> You seem to feel that just because I may have a website or other 
> service up on the net that you have unfettered rights to access it.  
> That is not true.  I can limit or even revoke your access at any time 
> without notice.  So can every other operators, except perhaps certain 
> governmental ("public") operators.  Moreover, if you persist and pound 
> on my servers to excess or try to penetrate the security barriers then 
> you could be find that you've stepped into somewhat deep waters.
>
> But that's websites.  Let's get back to the carriage of packets over 
> the net:
>
> ISP's tend to have peering and transit contracts with one another to 
> which you have neither privity nor third party beneficiary rights with 
> regard to those agreements.
>
> At best you have an agreement with your local first hop provider/ISP, 
> nothing more.
>
> You can not demand that third party providers carry packets to and 
> from your ISP.  Even less do you have standing to demand that those 
> third party providers give your packets equal or premier treatment.
>
> I get the sense that you are also attempting to equate the carriage of 
> IP packets over privately owned links and routers in the net as if 
> those were some sort of public place, along the lines of the cases in 
> which private shopping malls were equated to public streets for 
> purposes of things like gathering signatures on petitions.
>
> If that's what you are attempting, I find the analogy flat.  A 
> provider that doesn't carry your packets with equity or even at all, 
> is not stopping you from publishing your material.  There are almost 
> as many web hosting providers as there are Starbucks coffee stores - 
> so if one can't publish your stuff there's always a willing and able 
> provider coming around on the merry-go-round.  Perhaps if there were 
> some sort of collusion among all the providers there might possibly be 
> something actionable.
>
> But finally, this whole thread started when someone said that the 
> phrase "public internet" was the whole internet.  You can pound your 
> keyboard against the cold iron of the perception of those who are 
> spending the money that they own and thus control the assets they paid 
> for.
>
> I suggest that absent some sort of expropriation that the best you 
> could possibly achieve is some sort of non-discriminatory 
> common-carriage regime to defined classes of service but that 
> different classes of service would come at different prices.
>
> That regime is not going to arise out of some local "common law" 
> principle (particularly as most of the world isn't based on English 
> "common law" at all).  It might arise at a national level via national 
> legislation, but as we well know the net is international and 
> supranational and that national law in that context is nothing more 
> than "mere domestic law".
>
>         --karl--
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