[governance] Yes! Hands off the Internet!

[michael gurstein]

BTW, I probably should mention that for some reason your emails are all ending up in my "junk e-mail" folder... Which I don't always check... 

M

-----Original Message-----
From: Pranesh Prakash [mailto:pranesh at cis-india.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 8:45 AM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Yes! Hands off the Internet!

michael gurstein [2013-01-01 21:49]:
> Pranesh, I think the (high) relevance of the Nader article is in 
> response to the position articulated by (I believe it was) David 
> Conrad and Suresh, with respect to (particularly Facebook) that "ya'
> pays yer money and ya' takes yer chances" errr... you sign up to the 
> service which includes "assenting" to some indecipherable contract 
> waiver and then (according to them) you are subject to whatever whims 
> or fancies their over-clever and over-priced lawyers and evil twin 
> marketers come up with in their capricious privacy (or whatever) 
> statement of the day... forevermore...

Nader's work on standard-form contracts and on unequal bargaining power is why I said "Nader is quite relevant to the current discussion".

Indeed, I have argued in numerous places (including at the IGF12 in WS 141, the panel on industry self-governance) that increased network effects and lack of substitutability are grave problems that leave traditional competition law analysis problematic.  In the transcript from that, see the bit that starts off with "Very briefly, two kinds of examples of what I am talking about in terms of restrictions" (warning:
there are a number of errors in the transcription, but you should be able to get the gist of where I'm going):

http://goo.gl/mttFp

I still do not see the relevance of the article that Riaz forwarded.

--
Pranesh Prakash
Policy Director
Centre for Internet and Society
T: +91 80 40926283 | W: http://cis-india.org PGP ID: 0x1D5C5F07 | Twitter: @pranesh_prakash



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