[governance] Internet blackout in Egypt

Fri Jan 28 12:39:51 EST 2011

Dear list,

Please note that on 18 and 19 April the Council of Europe will be organising a conference to discuss issues of Internet freedom: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/

You will find attached a tentative programme. Registrations will be possible via a website which at the moment is under construction.

Please feel free to contact me for any queries.

Best regards,
Elvana
~

Elvana Thaçi 
InfoSoc, Media and Data Protection Division 
Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs 
Council of Europe 
F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex 
Tel.  + 33 (0) 3 90 21 56 98 
Fax. + 33 (0) 3 88 41 27 05 
E-mail: elvana.thaci at coe.int <mailto:elvana.thaci at coe.int>  
Internet: www.coe.int/media <http://www.coe.int/media>  

________________________________

From: governance-request at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of parminder
Sent: Friday 28 January 2011 18:17
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Avri Doria
Subject: Re: [governance] Internet blackout in Egypt

Avri Doria wrote: 

	Hi,

	This is all one reason while, though I think policy and Internet Governance moves are critical, we need to support the continuing development of technology that stays ahead of any government's ability to shut if off or block it.

Or any corporate's ability to take illegitimate rent by squatting over a commons - and also to choose what political development - including revolutions - it will support or not . 

What is the way to support the  continuing development of 'such technology'  that prevents such inappropriate controls? 

	  This is one reason also for protecting the notion of non centralized services and furthering their development.

The question as to how do we support the development of non centralized services is really one of the most important IG issues, because all empirical evidence today points to the fact that we are moving towards more and more centralized and monopolistic Internet services.

I suggest policy interventions that ensure that there is no concentration of market power towards monopolisation in any application area (google. facebook, twitter etc) and there is adequate policy measures to ensure a decentralized architecture of the Internet - ensuing against vertical integration across content, application and infrastructure layers  (net neutrality), search engine algorithms  are open, and social networking sites can cross access data to ensure there are no lock-ins, 

Who would take these required policy measures? Not the US where most of these big companies are registered, because the social costs of these monopolies to its citizens  are weighed against the money that these companies earn for the US economy.  Then, who can take the required measures ?  

I once again suggest, this can only be some by appropriate global governance systems for the Internet, Thus my interest in this area, and my stated positions on various IG issues, But I am open to be persuaded to alternative possibilities of ensuring what we all seem to want. parminder 

	a.

	On 28 Jan 2011, at 06:16, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:

		Sorry, McTim, this can happen in any sector in any country in which a
		government decides to do so in a crisis situation, be it right, just,
		democratic or, as in this case, dictatorial. When the USA invaded Iraq
		all communications were cut except for the US military and the "embedded
		media", just to quote a somewhat more extreme example. The USA
		government has already explicitly mentioned moves to "shut down" the
		Internet in a crisis.

		So, it demonstrates nothing of this sort... We need other arguments to
		keep our struggle for multiskaholder governance of the Net. Our major
		worry regarding the "influence" or control of the State over the
		Internet is what is happening on a day-to-day basis in major countries
		(like the USA, with the COICA proposal, in France, in England etc) which
		can in practice draw dozens of other countries' governments to the same
		trend.

		--c.a.

		On 01/28/2011 08:55 AM, McTim wrote:

			This is why its madness to comtenplate giving govts MORE control over
			things Internety. Rgds, McTim

			On 1/28/11, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>  wrote:

				Today may turn out to be a historic day for Egypt...

				Pl read below.

				AP: "The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark"

				http://bit.ly/gCJFHt  (AP / MSN)

				  " <http://bit.ly/gCJFHt%28AP/MSN%29> The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong
				   control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of
				   them to pull their plugs at once, something that Cowie called
				   'almost entirely unprecedented in Internet history.'"

				--

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