[governance] Conflicts in Internet Governance

Sun Apr 14 12:58:36 EDT 2013

The question is, what is needed to protect and strengthen the internet
commons?
As Avri points out, governments have assisted the theft of the commons.
I would say that the form that this assistance takes ranges from lack of
the basic regulation that is needed to protect it to active protection
of certain vested interests. That is why the notion of an 'unregulated'
internet is so problematic and why the notion of an open and unregulated
internet can so easily be a contradiction in terms.

There needs to be some basic rules that makes sure that the internet
remains 'open and free' in a broad sense.

The risks, or the challenges related to this is that many governments
approach regulation of the internet not from the perspective of
protecting it as a commons, but from the perspective of enabling them to
exercise more control over internet content and use, and user behaviour.

I remain convinced that one of the difficulties in internet governance
is that there is a conceptual/principle deficit of some kind. Not so
much statement of principles that affirm freedom of expression,
'net-neutrality', etc.. Those are good....

I think they real deficit is in how the internet is defined, or what
kind of entity we understand it to be. 

When the management and supply of water is being regulated there are
also lots of contestation. For example between mines, communities who
live in the catchment area, communities who live downstream subject to
seasonal flooding, cities and commercial farms who need dams, and nature
conservation and reservers, where traditional seasonal flooding is often
essential to the survival of many species.

Policy would generally try to understand and balance all these interests
and will be premised on a common understanding that water is a common
resource. The public interest principles will be fairly easily
understood by most that are involved water policy and regulation. But
there will be lots of argument about how it is managed, and used and
often the wrong decisions will be made.

I just had a glance at the CGI.br principles and the IRP 10 principles
and neither statement contains anything that suggests what the internet
- from the perspective of it being a 'commons' or a public good - is. I
know I have been dwelling on this ONE KEY 'principle' deficit for a
while... but I just can't give thinking it is at the root of the
difficulties we have in addressing the conflicts of interest in internet
governance.

Anriette

On 14/04/2013 02:50, Avri Doria wrote:
> All of the Internet, like the land world before it, was once commons. Then, as before, the rich, the powerful and greedy, with the assistance of the governments they bought, and continue to buy, began to misappropriate those commons and called it property.  Each day more of that commons its stolen. Each day more of the linguistic commons is stolen and called intellectual property. The Internet commons is almost gone. This its what government do best - with some very few exceptions - assist in the theft of the commons.
>
> I have no problem with those who create art or new Internet spaces enjoying the fruits of their creativity and inventiveness. A neologism may be owned. A new Internet space may be owned. But the language itself or the Internet should not be.
>
> Diego Rafael Canabarro <diegocanabarro at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> At the International Studies Association Annual Convention last week in
>> San
>> Francisco, an official from the US Department of State said: "there's
>> no
>> commons on cyberspace". That perception is closely related to the
>> conflict
>> presented by Mr. Perry bellow in this thread. I'm still struggling with
>> that assertion.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>>
>>> Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> One of the most significant I'm aware of (and I hope this is within
>>>> the remit of your question):
>>> It definitely is, and it's a conflict that I have not been
>> sufficiently
>>> conscious of, so thank you very much for pointing this out!
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>> Norbert
>>>
>>>> The private sector has built extensive
>>>> networks [fixed and mobile] using $billons of investment on which
>>>> their shareholders [many of whom are the consumers' pension funds]
>>>> expect a return, versus many customers who feel entitled to have
>>>> unlimited usage for a relatively trivial monthly payment (which
>> they
>>>> sometimes dress up as "Network Neutrality").
>>>>
>>>> I post this not to support either of the above points of view, but
>>>> merely to inform readers of the conflict it unquestionably
>> represents.
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> Diego R. Canabarro
>> http://lattes.cnpq.br/4980585945314597
>>
>> --
>> diego.canabarro [at] ufrgs.br
>> diego [at] pubpol.umass.edu
>> MSN: diegocanabarro [at] gmail.com
>> Skype: diegocanabarro
>> Cell # +55-51-9244-3425 (Brasil) / +1-413-362-0133 (USA)
>> --
> Avri Doria

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director, association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

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