[governance] The Fractured Internet

["Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"]

This is an interesting snippet from
 
Top Ten Internet Law Developments of 2012 <http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130111_top_ten_internet_law_developments_of_2012/>  by Eric Goldman <http://www.circleid.com/members/614/>  
 
#2: ITU/WCIT's Attempted Internet Takeover. I really didn't understand what happened in Dubai at the ITU/WCIT meeting. All I know is that nothing good could have happened there, so preserving the status quo is a win, as ironic as that sounds.

However, there has been some teeth-gnashing that the meeting exposed looming fault lines between pro-censorship and anti-censorship governments. I don't understand that angst for at least two reasons. First, all governments are pro-censorship, and that certainly includes the United States. Indeed, the US has exhibited some awkward duality as it rails against foreign attempts to censor the Internet even as both Congress and the Obama Administration exhibit a never-ending pursuit of controlling the Internet themselves.

Second, the Internet has already fractured into multiple "Internets." The Internet in the United States increasingly bears little resemblance to the Internet in foreign countries, both because local regulators simply block certain websites and because websites localize their services to accommodate local regulation. Plus, it's been proven that countries can simply "unplug" from the Internet. Thus, we don't have a single unified Internet; we have many partially-overlapping Internets. I will say more about this in a future post.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130111_top_ten_internet_law_developments_of_2012/

 

Wolfgang

 


 

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