[WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : Strategic priorities for WGIG

[Gurstein, Michael]

Presumably the problem isn't "governance" or even "central governance"
per se, but rather the means by which that governance is achieved as for
example, whether it is done by means of open and transparent and broadly
democratic/participative processes or whether it is done by fiat through
second order governmental processes (governments responding to
politicians who, having achieved power on the basis of other issues,
begin legislating on these issues); bureaucratic processes (bureaucrats
with greater but usually lesser processes of accountability to
politcians q.v. making decisions in this area without any clear path for
broader public control in the public interest); technocrats making
decisionswith no accountability to anyone except their own consciences
and sometimes rather narrow understanding of the public interest; or
corporations with even less accountability (their accountability
structures can be seen as a negative element since they frequently work
in opposition or at least transversely to a public interest...

If Civil Society isn't concerned with governance processes that allow
for effective control by and for the public interest then who will be?

MG

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On
Behalf Of Vittorio Bertola
Sent: January 31, 2005 2:47 PM
To: WSIS Plenary
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : Strategic priorities for WGIG


Il giorno dom, 30-01-2005 alle 04:24 +0000, Enrique A. Chaparro ha
scritto:
> issues'' and ``Internet *governance* issues. By the way, I believe 
> that ICANN as a governance body is a fiasco and has not lived up to 
> our  expectations (but those of the corporate world), by not doing 
> what it was required to do, and by doing what it has not been 
> requested to.

I do not share the point about the supposed "mission creep", but I share
the idea that ICANN has been much more focused on (or controlled by, if
you prefer) the Internet industry than on the Internet public, and share
the list of evils you thoroughly describe below (which, BTW, is the
reason why the IG Caucus tends to support ICANN rather than the other
solutions that realistically could be put in place).

> To accomplish these goals, there shouldn't be more than one (and just
> one) level of representation between that community and the people 
> entrusted with the governance powers.

Beware - do you imagine 1'000'000'000 Internet users directly electing,
say, 10 members of the "Internet governance group"? I don't think it
would work in practice. It would be a game for capture, English
speakers, and well organized (and funded) individuals.

> fourth paragraphs of my message. However, if both of us agree on a 
> mail protocol distinct from SMTP, not using already allocated port and

> protocol numbers (let's say, BCUMTP, the Bertola-Chaparro Unreliable 
> Mail Transfer Protocol, using port 54321) we can still use the 
> Internet without breaking any standards. So, in fact, the issue seems 
> to require a little more explanation:
> - Internet standards are rules, that can be expressed in a declarative
>   language.
> - Such rules can be expressed as: IF (your_role_in_the_Internet)
>   YOU MUST (do_something), e.g., if your host's port 25 is open,
>   you must accept and reply an incoming HELO
> Sorry for the oversimplification, but I'm sure you get the idea. Do 
> you think that governance should extend to the BCUMTP? And if so, why?

Let's supposed that tomorrow Bertola and Chaparro are hired by a well
known software manufacturer which controls 80% or so of the operating
systems market. This manufacturer, all of a sudden, makes so that all
its operating systems and applications will stop talking SMTP and start
talking BCUMTP, which unfortunately is a proprietary and patented
protocol which other manufacturers, or free software developers, cannot
implement.

Doesn't this look to you like a situation that needs governance?

Or, let's say that tomorrow, in a free and open IETF working group, a
bunch of ten male and white engineers decides that in the next version
of SMTP, to prevent spam, you will be required to identify yourself to
be able to send an e-mail - otherwise the server MUST reply "-ERR Sender
identification required." So, in a few years from now, you will not be
able to send an e-mail anonymously.

Or, let's say that whoever runs the .com registry suddenly changes the
behaviour of their servers, so that, whenever you ask for a non-existing
domain name, rather than replying "NOT EXIST" they say it exists, and it
belongs to the registry, which will then send you back advertising; and
this would break applications for the rest of the world. Hey! This one
already happened, and the world discovered that there were no 100% safe
legal bases under which this could be prevented...

I'm not saying that top-down governance is the right solution to
everything. But I'm saying that "no governance", in a competitive and
hostile environment such as the mass Internet, is just going to turn the
network into a jungle, where the strongest wins and the users have no
rights or powers.

> I wonder if this point is the focus of our controversy. Your statement

> can be read as ``everything that is in the Internet requires some kind

> of formal governance'', while I believe that the scope of IG must be 
> very limited. The best way to avoid power abuse is by not having it :)

But what happens if no one has the power to stop bad things from
happening? The issue, to me, is to build the right governance framework
with the right powers and accountability. None of the extreme solutions
of "no governance at all" or "total governance" may work.
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...

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