[governance] Hmmmm... Google: "Internet Freedom!"... (from taxes?

[Lee W McKnight]

Hi,

I've been busy infiltrating Internet Rights and Principles into the capitalist elite - CIOs of banks like UBS, Bank of America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia...and hanging with China Mobile and partners...so have missed all your fun on list of past few days. (more on that, later in the week).

And not to get in a debate on economics; but rather to elaborate on the historical record, since certain transition points of past may be instructive for the possible future.

So to add to the discussion (?)

Re: "Frankly", development of the TCP/IP protocols were supported by military research contracts, which had no intention of supporting a commercial industry. "The Internet" spread to the general population and succeeded because of telecommunications liberalization and a free market.

The sequence was: DARPA->NSF->Department of Commerce, with

                          IETF->ISOC->ICANN + RIRs created along the way

paralleling the transition from a defense/computer science research project to a commercial + multistakeholder environment.

Telecoms liberalization helped speed the net along but the key steps were taken before the '96 Telecom Act passed.

So (more) telecoms liberalization helped spur the net bubble but did not create the commercial Internet.

To be very precise, it was the 'Gore Bill' or High Performance Computing Act (of '89? or '90?) which was the key legislative milestone in getting us to the commercial net of today, and that was because of its explicit subsidy of expanding the net backbone in that still pre-full commercialization stage.

And then shutting off the subsidy, and nsfnet backbone, April 1, 1995. (Someone had a sense of humor - don't know if it was Gore - unlikely according to his reputation - or Bush or some Congressional Republican).

A billion $ of US taxpayers $$ went a long way back then - 5 yrs @ $200m/yr was what it took.

By April 2nd '95 noone noticed the US government had exited the net backbone 'market,' and the rest of the story is pretty well known.

Some of you  can thank us US taxpayers now, or later, for - George Bush the senior working the deal with Gore, back in the day, that got us here.

Of course, what this all has to with how the net of nets should be coordinated in 2013 is - unclear.

Other than to indicate reasonably orderly transitions from one - state - to another have happened multiple times before, and certainly can in future as well; even if the now global dimensions of the challenge, and the market, make it a bit harder than US federal agencies cooperating - though even that is not easy, as anyone ever dealing with government agencies knows well.

Lee

PS: So yes, really, Gore should be credited for the commercial Internet, not because he 'invented' it; but yeah for real he personally was the one guy who deserves credit for getting it funded, and launched. That's why it was called 'the Gore Bill.'


________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] on behalf of McTim [dogwallah at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 4:22 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Hmmmm... Google: "Internet Freedom!"... (from taxes?

Riaz,

On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com<mailto:riaz.tayob at gmail.com>> wrote:

<SNIP>

Now I have no truck disagreeing with Mueller on economics - these approaches differ in method as well as context, so there is room for disagreement. But on the politics of the matter (sorry Milton, for some Institutionalists if it is relevant then it must be included in the "calculation") Milton, with what I surmise from his Institutionalism - not having read all his work, is no different from American Exceptionalists on this list.

Can you point to any of those?  I have challenged you on this before, and from what I can see there are none (even amongst the Americans on the list, some of whom are amongst the strongest voices for "internationalising ICANN").


--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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