[governance] regulating the digital space - whose laws apply, and whose do not

[Norbert Bollow]

McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

> At heart, the Internet is the suite of protocols and standards that allow
> networks to communicate.  These have never legislated.

Indeed.

Well, internal to the Swiss federal government an attempt to legislate
regarding this kind of thing has been made: For *many* years now there
has been a binding internal rule ("Weisung") that whenever the network
of the Swiss federal admininistration is extended, IPv6 is to be used
for that. Last week I asked someone about this who knows very well what
is and what isn't done in that area. I was unsurprised to learn that
after so many years, the Swiss federal government still doesn't have a
single IPv6 host, not even a locally IPv6 enabled LAN, nothing. He did
mention some local governments (where that that "Weisung" doesn't apply)
that have that kind of thing. So here in Switzerland at least, progress
in the direction of IPv6 is happening in some places where it's not
legislated, but where it's legislated it's not happening. (The federal
government has IPv6 address space reserved, but it's not being used,
and there is absolutely no work underway in the direction of creating
a migration plan or any other kind of plan for implementing that
"Weisung".) So much for the idea that Internet "relies" on the law. :-)

> It's the services that run over these networks and the resulting
> epiphenomenon that so many seem hell bent on regulating.

Yes. I think that everyone agrees that some things that can be done
while using the Internet need regulation and laws either to facititate
or to prohibit those activities, or to ensure some degree of fairness,
regardless of whether the activies are conducted via the Internet or
in some other way. That's not really a property of the Internet.

What the disagreements are about is IMO primarily about how to cope
with the reality that the Internet disrupts many of the assumptions
on which existing laws and regulations are based. Those assumptions
are simply no longer valid, so that without some kind of action to
fix those laws and regulations, they're simply not compatible with
the existence of the Internet (which can result e.g. in laws becoming
ineffective or grossly unfair or both).

Greetings,
Norbert
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