[governance] Towards an Internet Social Forum

[William Drake]

Hi

Last quick time around for me as I have to pack and go to the airport.

> On Feb 4, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Sean O Siochru <sean at nexus.ie> wrote:
>  
> A 'binding decision' mean different things, especially in the context of the internet. I did say that I would favour a shift in the direction of decisions by (democratic and genuine) consensus among all stakeholders  - and would include some of the areas for decision that you, Bill, mention.  

Which orgs like ICANN do via contracts after extensive inputs from governments as well as stakeholders.
> 
> But even intergovernmental organisations have 'binding' decision undermined by the evolution of technology or maneuvering of others.  e.g.  government can agree what they like between them, but wider dynamics can simply sweep that aside (which is not always a bad thing). The history of telecommunications in the last 30 years is a prime example of that (remember accounting rates and all the other and the scramble to the ITU to stay relevant).

Sure
> 
> Second 'binding' decisions can also mean decisions by monopoly or oligopolies corporations that in effect dictate that way things are for the vast majority of people (Microsoft, google, facebook etc.).

Right and in some such cases public policy may be the appropriate response, in others you may be able to get better results through a non-PP governance approach, depends what we’re talking about.

> On Feb 4, 2015, at 11:33 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> 
> I see no contradiction between what you say and my statements.  Yes, these above are all inter gov decision making systems, because they deal with core economic-social-political aspects of e-commerce. The rest below that you mention deal with the more technical aspects of e-com, and can appropriately have expertise based structures. We indeed agree here. 

Which happens from time to time. Scary and disorienting, huh? :-)
> 
> (1) For those Internet related public policy issues that are of a core social-political nature we need inter gov systems with appropriate stakeholder consultative participation (as in OECD/ EC that you refer to above). 

For me, it depends which core social-political issues we’re talking about.  For example, at a general level privacy is obviously one, but some privacy issues like working out rules for WHOIS and its replacement I’d rather see tackled on a multistakeholder basis with government input.  In contrast broader data protection should be the purview of governments with extensive stakeholder input.  I think the optimal geometry of roles and responsibilities is variable and dynamic, which is why a fixed and static formulation per WSIS is problematic.
> 
> 
> And 
> 
> (2) For technical/ operational decision making, any conflict  or interface with issues of public policy nature will require special rules-based arms-length political oversight systems of some kind. 

Again for me it depends what we’re talking about.  In ICANN I think the GAC has quite enough influence now and often uses it poorly, so I wouldn’t want to see it grown out to some more unilateral form of command and control.
> 
> The question is whether you agree with these two propositions or not.

And the answer is, it depends (sorry).

Cheers

Bill



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