[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

[parminder]

On Friday 15 July 2011 02:11 PM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>
>
> On 15.07.11 03:57, Paul Lehto wrote:
>>
>> Now Mike, when you point to a subset of the people affected by CIRA
>> (domain registrants) and note that they can be voting members if they
>> wish, but ignore the mere user who is also governed to some extent by
>> CIRA, and then call that exclusion "reasonably democratic", you're
>> really saying that a largish aristocracy is "reasonably democratic."
>
> This is all true, except you miss the whole point. Internet resources 
> are private, not public.

This is the crux of the disagreement. Internet is public, not private. 
This is why, for instance, we meet at the UN Internet Governance Forum 
to discuss its governance. I did give what may be the extreme example, 
that the 'market' is public while the enterprises participating in the 
market are private. Similarly the public Internet connects private 
spaces. To give just one example, if you need the recent FCC directives 
on network neutrality, you will clearly see how the Internet as we know 
and speak of is considered a public internet.

However, I am obliged, though also a bit shocked with the starkness of 
it, that you have clearly explained below many people's thinking and 
ideology about what the Internet is, especially many of those people who 
are closely associated with its governance today. This is the ideology 
that organisation like ours seeks to fight professionally. We see the 
grave danger in using the influence of the Internet over our world as a 
key neoliberal strategy towards marketising most things, if not all thing.

You ask, is this arrangement democratic... No absolutely not  9I know 
you yourself are clear that it is not democratic). And I understand that 
the civil society here, and elsewhere, is largely for democracy vis a 
vis the governance of the Internet as for other things.

Speaking of apple gardens, and private guards, and if you want to join 
the club you may, is such a beautiful analogy. incidentally, we are 
completing a paper on 'open but not public: membership of informaiton 
society as a club good'. And you seem to be clear, yes, it is a club 
good. Whatever else, thanks for providing such clarity to the debate :).

Parminder


>
> Let me try one more time. Please note we may have language differences 
> and I claim no proper terminology knowledge of 'democracy theory'.
>
> What you call democracy is a system, where the public gives up certain 
> of their rights to elected third party (or parties) but reserves the 
> right to replace them by voting, if they misbehave.
>
> In the case of a ccTLD manager and their procedures, or 'law' (the 
> case you make with CIRA, being 'non-democratic'), there is no 'right' 
> to possess a .ca domain name. For anyone. There does not exist a right 
> for anyone, to use Internet, both because Internet as such is a 
> collection of private resources and because those who use it did not 
> gave up any 'rights' to it's governors.
>
> An real-life example. Imagine you walk in an area full of gardens. 
> Some gardens are better, some are worse. But none of them is yours. 
> None of them is 'public'. All are private gardens. For the most part, 
> you don't even have an idea who the owner is. You go forward and pick 
> an apple form one garden. Nothing happens... You then go fill few 
> baskets, cut few trees. Eventually out of a sudden guards come along 
> and demand you obey certain rules.
>
> You did not elect who those guards are. You cannot vote to replace 
> them because you didn't like how they handled you. Eventually, people 
> who planted that garden (think, the .ca domain) and the people who 
> regularly take care of it and visit it (think, .ca domain registrants, 
> registrars etc.) elected them - they pay for the guards etc. If you 
> wish to have your say, you must join that 'club'.
>
> Is this democratic? :)
>
> I see no way how Internet can switch from being private to being 
> public. If it was say, AOL, the US Government might nationalize it, 
> but it is spread all over the world with all kinds of stakeholders 
> possessing small pieces of it.
>
> About the only way I see this happening, is a third world war and the 
> winner (the rats, they say) making the Internet democratic. (or parts 
> of it, really)
>
> Daniel
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