[governance] Is This An Issue for Internet Governance/Internet Human Rights?

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<CAD=1OveO97kHfTY+YQA6AyDMyrXb5PmzZoVAfoZ9dxMR_Q2eQw at mail.gmail.com>, at 
10:19:26 on Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> writes
>On 7/23/11, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
>> Obviously, because governance can be done by various actors, not all of
>> whom are governments.
>
>But governance can not be done by non-governmental, and especially
>corporate, actors without major consequences.

Major *bad* consequences?

>I've addressed the highlights of those major consequences in posts over 
>the last couple weeks.  As a policy wonk, Roland, I would think that 
>you would be somewhat averse to such simple statements as it's 
>"obvious" that governance can be done by various actors, when such a 
>statement sets up a very large series of important policy and rights 
>issues.

A great deal of governance in the UK at least is done on the basis of 
self-regulation. And important Internet Governance institutions such as 
Nominet are non-governmental. Several aspects of content regulation are 
done by relying upon the Terms and Conditions applying to commercial 
services, rather than a law enforcement official.

>No matter which side you take on those issues, it would seem that 
>internet policy is your cup of tea, and informed accuracy your goal at 
>all times, so (perhaps in other forums outside the limits of email) 
>hopefully you will address them in detail at some other time, and make 
>statements within places like this email thread that leave openings for 
>that later discussion, such as:
>
>"Obviously, because governance can be done by various actors, not all
>of whom are governments, the field of "internet governance" is quite
>large indeed, and the identity of the actor providing the governance
>itself raises important questions of internet governance."

Yes, it is a policy decision in its own right to decide which actors are 
going to be empowered.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Government can decide that (eg) a 
Private Sector actor is the most appropriate. Quite often, when the 
Government "steps in" it's a sign that existing measures are going a bit 
wrong (we've had some issues with newspaper regulation recently).
-- 
Roland Perry
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