[governance] Fwd: [ NNSquad ] New York Post: FTC reportedly will find that Google did not violate antitrust laws

[Norbert Bollow]

Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> wrote:

> But how is it Internet governance?

I would suggest that one of the big challenges that we're facing in
Internet governance discussions is that the number of policy topics is
increasing which are somehow becoming part of Internet governance,
because

(1) as a direct result of what happens on the Internet, these topics
have evolved from primarily national to being global concerns;

(2) they are deeply relevant to what as per the 2012 IGF's theme should
be the objective of Internet governance: Sustainable human, economic
and social development;

(3) in the absence of global coordination, it is not unlikely for unwise
national governmental/legislative action regarding these topics to
happen which can potentially have a profound negative impact on how the
Internet can be used in the concerned country or countries or even
globally.

I would suggest that specifically in regard to the big global Internet
advertising businesses (which as part of their strategy for being able
to sell advertising provide what for a very large percentage of
Internet users are key elements in their experience of using the
Internet),

 * antitrust laws or the lack of effective antitrust laws

 * taxation rules and tax-paying (or tax evasion) practices (as
   discussed in another thread)

are now also becoming such topics.

Personally I would prefer to be able to keep Internet governance limited
to a relatively small number of topics, but I don't think that that can
reasonably be done.

> Do you think it would be appropriate to have a session on "Google +
> Antitrust" at the 2013 IGF?

I don't think that it would be appropriate to single out Google or any
other company in IGF session or workshop themes, but I do think that a
workshop would be interesting that would explore the challenges to
antitrust principles which are posed by today's big global providers of
software and internet based services and by the reality that in their
areas of activity, network effects make it very hard for effective
competition to be sustained in the long run.

Greetings,
Norbert

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