[governance] Access to the Internet and Human Rights

[parminder]

On Tuesday 17 January 2012 05:03 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> snip
> So the choice is
>
> (a) to deny that these important needs are human rights, which has
> the effect of creating a skewed legal system in which the business
> interests of influential companies are valued more highly than
> these important needs of humans; or
>
> (b) to accept that these are human rights, while acknowledging that
> there are problems, that have not yet been fully solved, with
> empowering people to enjoy these rights.
>    

This is precisely the point; whether Internet will 'primarily' be seen 
from an ordinary business/ economic point of view or from a rights based 
perspective. Education and health are two examples of areas where there 
is huge amount of business involved but get 'primarily' seen from a 
rights based perspective. This strongly influences the way these two 
sectors get governed. If they were primarily seem from a business/ 
economic point of view, they will have been governed very differently. 
This is the crux of the 'right to the Internet' debate. (However, it is 
also true that the Internet space does have unique qualities that makes 
it different from these two others sectors, and these unique features 
will influence what kind of rights based approach is appropriate for it.)

Importantly, the phrase 'right to the Internet' is much broader than 
'right to access the Internet' while including it. It means application 
of a rights based approach to all facets of the Internet, which could 
well include ensuring what has been called as 'search neutrality', 
overruling the justification of 'trade secret'. In the same way as all 
ingredient information about medicines has to be declared, but this does 
not apply for Coke. a relevant question could be; is the global 
knowledge architecture, which google is transforming into, an important 
area enough, like medicines, for people to have basic human rights (and 
not just consumer rights) vis a vis it? If so, what policies then it 
requires to ensure such rights?

> snip
> But I have spent a lot of time in another area of Internet governance
> on opposing efforts of lobbyists of another company (one lobbyist
> after the other, every few years a new one has taken over the role)
> who all of them have used the same strategy of muddying the waters by
> at least pretending to be ignorant in exactly the same way (that was
> obvious to someone like me who had actually thought the matter
> through, but that is not obvious at all to the government decision
> makers who lack either the intelligence or the personal interest to
> truly understand the issues.
>    
I suspect I know the company you are referring to :). Have had the same 
experience with it myself. parminder

> I have always treated these lobbyists with respect personally (while
> of course opposing much of what they were pushing for), and I do not
> regret having always sought to do this.
>
> But at the same time, I find it simply naive and unrealistic to expect
> company-paid lobbying to pursue any other objectives besides the
> company's business objectives.
>
> Why should Google's "Internet evangelist" be an exception to this
> rule?
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
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