IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)

[Norbert Bollow]

Andrea Glorioso <andrea at digitalpolicy.it> wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> > Andrea Glorioso <andrea at digitalpolicy.it> wrote:
> > > However, let me point out that although the IETF may not have a
> > > "monopoly" in solving these and/or similar problems, its
> > > supporters do tend to present it as the best option for
> > > Internet-related standards-setting and, therefore,
> > > one may infer that other options should not be pursued.
> >
> > Ok, fair enough, IETF's failure to create convincing solutions in some
> > of the areas that it has worked on is a valid counterargument against
> > a "no other options should be pursued" viewpoint.
> 
> You are still reading more in my message than I meant to express, which
> could of course be my error in drafting. I am *not* claiming that the IETF
> has failed; I am suggesting (actually, agreeing with another person's
> suggestion) that there are objective criteria through which one may
> evaluate whether the IETF is succesful or not, and/or whether it should be
> taken as the  universal model for decisions concerning the Internet,
> including besides its rather technological remit.

Dear Andrea
In my view, if those specific criteria (which are really a short list
of topics on which IETF has tried and IMO failed to create good
solutions) are adopted, as criteria for evaluating "whether the IETF
is succesful or not", the result of the evaluation must necessarily be
"IETF is not successful". Which would in my eyes be a ridiculous
result since IETF has in fact very successfully contributed to making
the Internet the success that it is today. I would suggest that any
proposal "to evaluate whether the IETF is succesful or not" is
fundamentally flawed because it's based on a false dichotomy. In the
same way, "whether it should be taken as the universal model for
decisions concerning the Internet, including besides its rather
technological remit" is IMO a false dichotomy. We can learn from what
what works in IETF without ideologically taking it as "the universal
model".

> > I still think though that this is not a valid counterargument to my
> > assertion that IETF's fundamental model (absolute openness of
> > participation, rough consensus, and deferring decision-making about
> > draft standards until several members of the group have hands-on
> > experience with implementation and interoperability testing for the
> > draft specifications) is an effective means of creating robustness
> > against undue influence from powerful stakeholders.
> >
> 
> I am asking because I am genuinely interested in an analysis of the IETF
> that goes beyond the rather childish and stale mantras, which unfortunately
> permeate so much of Internet governance discussions:
> 
> - is "absolute openness" of participation a potential or an actual feature
> of the IETF? While it is true that the IETF does not require fees, it does
> require at least an Internet connection, which is beyond the reach of a
> not-insignificant part of the world.

With "absolute openness" I mean the kind of openness that IETF has, a
kind of openness that has been demonstrated to be practically achievable.
It is absolute in the sense that IETF is absolutely not creating any
hurdles of accreditation, registration, paywalls, etc., before someone
can participate.

If you object to calling this kind of openness "absolute" because
e.g. as you correctly say people without reasonably good Internet
access are not able to participate effectively (and there are other
groups who are also not able to participate effectively, such as
e.g. those who lack in-depth understanding of the topics under
discussion, those who lack adequate communication skills in the
English language, etc) please feel free to suggest another term for
the kind of openness that IETF has.

> Which means that this part of the world is de facto "delegating" the
> power to decide technological matters with an impact on public
> policy to third parties, not necessarily their elected
> representatives. So, if you have to delegate, why not delegate to
> your government, in which you have at least some (more or less functioning)
> means of redress and accountability?

First of all, what is "my government"? I'm a EU citizen living
outside the EU, in Switzerland. Maybe "my government" is the
Swiss government because this is the government that has
jurisdiction here.

In fact the Swiss government is the government that I have been
interacting with in trying (to some extent successfully) to
influence decision-making processes. My lack of Swiss citizenship
has never been an issue, not even when attending meetings in
government buildings were you need an explicit invitation and
you need to present your passport at the door in order to get in.

On the Internet governance issues that I care about, the Swiss
government doesn't currently seem to have anyone with expert-level
knowledge of the technical, economic and socio-economic aspects.
They seem to have only experts on the legal and diplomatic aspects.

The problem is that there is a company with strong market power
which will, on all topics where it might be to their disadvantage
if the Swiss government had sufficient understanding to make
informed decisions, muddy the waters by having their lobbyists
tell the Swiss government half-truths as well complete lies. There
is no effective means of redress and accountability available against
this strategy.

By contrast, if a similar strategy was tried in IETF, I would simply
give counterarguments and demonstrate the assertions of that lobbyist
to be false, and I would be understood.

Demonstrating the assertions of the lobbyist to be factually false is
an effective means of redress in IETF but not in meetings with
government officials who don't have the background knowledge to
understand the arguments.

I don't know whether perhaps the European Commission has enough people
with expert knowledge on all kinds of aspects of Internet governance
that this is not a problem, but from what I hear from other countries
where I know people who have been interacting with their respective
governments in similar ways, I know for sure that Switzerland is
certainly not alone in having this kind of problem.

> transfer such method to public policy decisions? Would a decision on
> network neutrality rules, privacy/data protection regulation, etc that
> impact half a billion people (referring to the European Union) be
> legitimate if taken following this "rough consensus" approach? How can one
> determine the legal and political responsibility of a certain decision if
> such decision is taken by "humming"?

I would envision the body that is modeled on the IETF to not make the
final decisions, but develop a set of models of potential regulations on
these topics, with documentation of advantages and drawbacks of each,
and leave it to the relevant parliaments to make the choice between
them.

Choices that involve seeking the balance between significant legitimate
conflicting interests cannot be made by the rough consensus method.

Greetings,
Norbert

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