[governance] European Parliament report on Internet governance

[Jeremy Malcolm]

I'm forwarding the important message below, with permission from the author who is Advocacy Coordinator for the European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRi).

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Joe McNamee" <joe at mcnamee.eu>
> Date: 19 March 2010 5:09:17 PM GMT+08:00
> To: "'Jeremy Malcolm'" <jeremy at ciroap.org>
> Subject: RE: [EDRi-members] Internet governance
> 
> 
> Dear all,
>  
> The European Parliament is currently preparing a non-legislative report on Internet governance.
>  
> The Committee responsible (Industry) is going fairly slowly, but the MEP in charge has produced a fairly ill-informed document (in my humble opinion) which includes rather unwelcome, confused and contradictory thoughts, such as these:
> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-438.468+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
>  
> 6. Bearing in mind that problems involving the Internet worldwide will continue to appear in forthcoming years, it is important that the EU institutions continue to work – as they are already doing on many fronts – on everything that may affect Europe’s values and fundamental rights’ heritage to ensure these are accepted in the global management of the Internet. Progress must therefore continue to be made on the following:
> 
> –guaranteeing plural and non-discriminatory access to the Internet,
> –defending the European view on Internet neutrality,
> –aspects connected with security in the face of threats or attacks,
> –protection of citizens’ right to privacy and resolution of questions as to who has jurisdiction and which law is applicable in deciding where cases are heard (given that the Rome II agreement expressly excludes non-contractual conflicts connected with the right to privacy),
> –protection of intellectual property rights and guarantees regarding access to users’ culture,
> –guaranteeing free competition,
> –combating crime and, specifically, protection of minors’ rights.
> 
>  
> The “Opinions” from other committees are generally bland and repeatedly call for “more transparency” from ICANN. My fear is that this chipping away at ICANN will lead us slowly in the direction of the ITU (lets not forget, without having nightmares, that the ITU and WIPO made a bid to fulfil the tasks now undertaken by ICANN!). To that end, I would like to draw MEPs’ attention to the fact (?) that there aren’t major problems with ICANN’s transparency, while the ITU would be a disaster for transparency, at least for the following 3 reasons.
>  
> Companies pay to participate in ITU discussions:
> http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/membership/cost.html
>  
> This payment is actively sold by the ITU as a way of buying influence: They get “access to various meetings at which decision-makers and potential partners are engaged in discussions” (http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/membership/sector.html)
> .
> Even more surprisingly, the documents adopted by the ITU are not widely available and must be purchased. See, for example:
> http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-X.Sup6-200909-I/en
>  
> As a result, I’m sure that there are members that know this issue far better than I do, particularly with regard to whether or not there are significant transparency issues in ICANN. I therefore need your feedback on a. if EDRi should be taking a view on this, b. if we should be taking the view described above or c. if we should be taking another view?
>  
> Best regards,
>  
> Joe
>  
>  
> Joe McNamee
> Advocacy Coordinator
> European Digital Rights
> 39/3  Rue Montoyer
> B-1000 Brussels
> Belgium
> Tel: +32 2 550 4112
> http://www.edri.org

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Project Coordinator
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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