[governance] Hyping one threat to hide another

[Guru गुरु]

Link: 
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece


Hyping one threat to hide another

Opinion <http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/> » Lead 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/>
November 28, 2012
Parminder Jeet Singh
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The U.S. and dominant global Internet companies fear regulation because 
it will adversely affect their control over the communication realm

A lot of global attention right now is focussed on the World Conference 
on International Telecommunications of the International 
Telecommunication Union (ITU) which will get under way in Dubai next 
week. This meeting is taking up a review of International 
Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs). When the ITRs were last reviewed 
in 1988, the Internet was not commonplace and, therefore, did not find 
mention. In 2012, it is difficult to think of global communication 
without the Internet. The key question today is whether the remit of the 
ITU should extend to the Internet or not, and if indeed it should, to 
what parts and aspects of the Internet, and in what manner.

One summary view, quite popular in many quarters, is that with the 
Internet taking over global communication systems, there is no role for 
the ITU anymore. Unlike traditional telecommunication — largely, 
telephony — global Internet traffic is mediated entirely through 
commercial arrangements among private players with almost no involvement 
of a regulator. Free market proponents, having greatly dominated the 
discourse so far, hold that the free market has fully triumphed, and 
delivered, in relation to the Internet. This model should not be 
disturbed. There is, therefore, no need for any kind of regulation of 
the Internet.

*‘Free market’ view*

This ‘free market’ view has found a powerful ally among freedom of 
expression groups, so much so that the debate about the future of the 
ITU is almost entirely fronted by evocative appeals about preserving the 
Internet as the ultimate domain of free expression. Unlike market 
fundamentalism, there are no two views about freedom of expression among 
most groups and people, and thus such a strategy is understandable. 
Perhaps for similar reasons, Hillary Clinton has spelled ‘Internet 
freedom’ as a key U.S. foreign policy agenda. It may, however, need 
deeper thought and analysis to assess whether the real agenda here is to 
use the new Internet-based global communication realm — with the 
unprecedented domination of U.S. companies in it — as the key means for 
global economic, social, cultural and political domination in the 
post-industrial world. /Any/ kind of global regulation of the Internet, 
or even articulation of global principles of public interest, does not 
serve this agenda.

The issue of freedom of expression vis-à-vis regulation of the Internet 
is of course very real. States are quite nervous about the 
transformational new means that allow citizens to exercise voice and 
associational power as never before. They are scrambling to get their 
hands on some lever or the other to prevent the potential damage. And it 
is not only the developing countries that are busy in this regard, so 
are the developed ones, greatly enhancing their surveillance 
capabilities. Nevertheless, at the ITU very few countries have floated 
proposals that could increase governmental control over Internet 
content. These proposals mostly pertain to subverting the current 
globally managed Internet names and addresses system, and the globally 
configured Internet traffic routing, to create more controllable 
national Internet spaces, or ‘national segments’ of the Internet, as one 
proposal calls them. There is very little support for these proposals. 
Almost all developed countries and most developing ones, including 
India, have not supported these.

At the recently concluded U.N. Internet Governance Forum at Baku, a 
reporter asked Terry Kramer, the chief U.S. delegate to the upcoming ITU 
conference, what the whole fuss is about when decisions can be taken 
only by consensus and there is so much opposition to these problematic 
proposals. Mr. Kramer was disarmingly honest in his response. He agreed 
that there was not that much real danger of anything happening at the 
WCIT itself. But, he said, this is a long-haul thing. What is at stake 
are the principles that will guide Internet regulation/governance in the 
long run. And in this regard, he continued, Dubai was just one of the 
many forums/meetings/crossroads, and many more are yet to come.

The U.S. and the dominant global Internet companies, which are at the 
forefront of the anti-ITU campaign, know their game and objectives quite 
well. It is important that others do so too. This is about the /new 
paradigm of global governance/regulation of the communication realm/. 
Most hype around the WCIT seems to be missing this point, largely 
because it is to a considerable extent orchestrated and misled by the 
dominant powers.

The paradigmatic issue here is whether the Internet, as the centrepiece 
of the new global communication realm, should be regulated at all. 
Freedom of expression is just one side of the story. The other, rather 
well disguised side is about the political economy of the global 
communication realm. It is about the division of resources within the 
communication realm, and, even more importantly, the larger global and 
sub-global division of resources — economic, social, and political — 
which is fundamentally impacted by the nature of regimes that govern the 
global communication realm.

*Closely regulated*

The communication realm — or more descriptively, the information and 
communication realm, and its technologies — has always been closely 
regulated in public interest. It is generally understood that it is of 
vital and extraordinary public interest, and cannot just be subject only 
to normal commercial regulation, that for instance governs trade in 
white goods. Every telephone company is obliged to carry the traffic 
from every other company in a non-discriminatory manner, which is called 
the common carriage rule. One can well imagine what it would be like if 
this rule is not enforced. Long back, there was a time when there was no 
such rule. The telephony revolution was made possible because regulators 
forced common carriage regulation on big companies in the U.S. and other 
places. Similarly, the IT revolution began when regulators in the U.S. 
forced software to be unbundled from hardware, whereby an independent 
software industry could develop. The rest is history.

There are universal service obligations in the telecom sector whereby 
every telecom provider must service every person/ household, etc., 
whether it serves its business model or not. And then there are 
regulations on tariffs, quality of service and so on. Telecom providers 
are forced to comply with disability friendly features, and they also 
contribute to Universal Service Funds that are used to universalise 
communication services. All of this, and much more, will disappear in an 
unregulated communication system. In taking a collective political 
decision on whether the Internet is at all to be regulated or not, we 
need to understand that we are taking decisions on all these issues, and 
not just on freedom of expression.

In order to understand the real stakes in the ‘regulation or not’ debate 
regarding the Internet, it is best to look at what is happening in the 
U.S. right now. The U.S. telecom market is dominated by two players, 
Verizon and AT&T. Verizon has challenged the Federal Communication 
Commission’s authority to enforce net neutrality (the Internet 
equivalent of the ‘common carriage’ rule), arguing that the Internet is 
not telecom and thus outside the FCC’s mandate. AT&T went a step 
further. It claimed that since even traditional telecom services, like 
telephony, increasingly work on Internet Protocols (IP), the FCC’s remit 
should not cover even telephony. In essence, more or less, the claim is 
that no regulation of the communication systems is needed at all. The 
FCC can close down! Markets have taken over, and are their own arbitrators!

California recently became the latest of many States in the U.S., mostly 
Republican-ruled, which have deregulated Voice-over-Internet-Protocol, 
effectively removing regulatory control over telephony service, 
disregarding the concerns expressed by many public interest groups. 
There are many deep implications of such changeovers. To give just one 
illustration, unlike traditional telephony systems that are obliged to 
have their own power-supply to account for emergency situations, the new 
IP based systems do not have such obligations. When most ‘new systems’ 
failed recently in the aftermath of Storm Sandy, unlike earlier times, 
the FCC found itself unable to question the disaster preparedness of the 
companies providing much of the communication infrastructure in the U.S. 
today.

What is happening at the ITU today, in good measure, is this game of 
freeing our communication realm from all public interest regulation. As 
mentioned, it is about a new paradigm of ‘complete non-regulation.’ And 
once the victory is achieved at the ITU, whereby the Internet and other 
IP networks, which would soon be the basis of all communication 
infrastructure, are considered out of any kind of regulatory oversight, 
the game will then be replayed at the national level, citing ‘global 
norms.’ In fact, during an on-the-side chat at a recent Internet 
governance meeting in New Delhi, a telecom company representative made a 
significant give-away remark. He said to an official of the Telecom 
Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), ‘but isn’t net neutrality about 
the Internet, and therefore TRAI should have nothing to do about it.’

In presenting a view on whether or not the Internet should be subject to 
the remit of the ITU and the ITRs, India may be taking a position on 
whether it seeks to free the Internet from all regulatory control, which 
logic would then perforce also extend to TRAI’s remit at home. The least 
one can say, and appeal to the government and other actors in the space, 
is that this should be a considered decision after thoroughly assessing 
all sides of the story.

Freedom of expression is not the only issue that is involved here. There 
are so many other issues, involving significant economic, social and 
cultural considerations, that are at stake with regard to regulation of 
the Internet. It may not be wise to throw out the baby with the bath water.

/(Parminder Jeet Singh is Executive Director of Bangalore based NGO, IT 
for Change. Email: parminder at itforchange.net)/

Keywords: Internet regulation 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
Internet freedom 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
Freedom of expression 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
International Telecommunications 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
ITU 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
ITRs 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>, 
global Internet traffic 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece#>


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