[governance] Internet as a commons/ public good; was, Conflicts in Internet Governance

Mon Apr 15 00:51:04 EDT 2013

Anriette/ All

I find this posting, and later ones in the thread very interesting. 
Indeed a good amount of confusion in this group's internal interactions 
owe to the fact that while we have some broad process rules, we have 
very little in terms of substance that we can take as a starting point 
for our political/ advocacy work. Recognising the Internet as a commons/ 
public good, and seeking that its basic governance principles flow from 
such a basic understanding of the Internet, is good and useful basic 
agreement to try to reach for this group,

I propose that the caucus adopts this as a/ the basic principle for 
IGC's political/ advocacy work.

I propose that we even go beyond and adopt a working definition of the 
Internet, absence of which itself has been identified as a major problem 
that renders many of our discussions/ positions here unclear. Avri 
proposes the following definition, which I find very encouraging....

    "Internet as an emergent, and emerging, reality consisting of
    hardware, protocols and software, and human intentionality brought
    together by a common set of design principles and constrained by
    policies fashioned by the stakeholders."

I propose small modifications to it

    "Internet as an emergent, and emerging, reality consisting of
    hardware, protocols and software, human intentionality, and a new
    kind of social spatiality, brought together by a common set of
    design principles and constrained by policies fashioned by due
    democratic processes."

So what I propose for this caucus to adopt is as follows

    "We recognise the Internet as an emergent, and emerging, reality
    consisting of hardware, protocols and software, human
    intentionality, and a new kind of social spatiality, brought
    together by a common set of design principles and constrained by
    policies fashioned by due democratic processes. Accordingly, the
    Internet is to be considered as a global commons and a global public
    good. The design principles and policies that constitute the
    governance of the Internet should must flow from such recognition of
    the Internet as a commons and a public good."

The text can of course be improved a lot, but I thought it is good to 
put forward something that the caucus can work upon...

parminder

On Sunday 14 April 2013 10:28 PM, Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> 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

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