".... The other area of global governance relates to wider public policy
issues like the role and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries
(like search engines and social networking sites), e-commerce,
cross-border data flows, intellectual property and access to knowledge,
trade and tax, online media, cultural diversity, privacy, security,
human rights, etc. At present, it is either U.S. law which applies
globally by default as most monopoly Internet companies are U.S.-based,
or the policy frameworks are developed by rich country clubs like the
OECD.....
Developed countries, chiefly the U.S., are using the power of their
monopoly Internet companies and other kinds of strategic advantages to
shape the Internet as per their narrow interests — economic, political,
security and cultural.... it is the policies and practices of the
North, as for example through its active complacency concerning “net
neutrality” (a key egalitarian architectural principle of the Internet),
and non-enforcement of competition law vis-à-vis the unprecedented
monopolisation in the Internet business, that are rapidly eroding the
bottom-up nature of the Internet....."
US attempts through policies/laws such as ACTA and SOPA for
extra-territorial enforcement of highly restrictive/extractive
"Intellectual Property" law, or undermining the security of other
countries through CIPSA worsens the current undemocratic regimes that
threaten to deepen inequities and further marginalise the disadvantaged.
These regimes seriously affects the potential of the Internet as an
emancipatory space, a force for progressive socio-economic change.
Currently there is largely a vacuum in civil society engagement on this
critical issue, perhaps because it is a new and complex issue or it is
wrongly seen as a 'technology area' best left to experts. *We need to
engage.*
*Link to our statement - in The Hindu Op-Ed :
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3426290.ece
Link to Parminder's comment - The Hindu Op-Ed :
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3426292.ece
For **more **reading on ITfC take on this issue,
http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance
*
regards
Guru
Full article:
India's proposal will help take the web out of U.S. control
Parminder Jeet Singh
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Unnerved by the Indian stand, IT monopolies are propagating the myth
that a multilateral governance structure will kill the decentralised,
multi-stakeholder nature of the Internet and lead to ‘government control'
Last year, in a statement to the U.N. General Assembly, India sought the
creation of a U.N. Committee on Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) in
order to democratise global Internet governance, which at present is
either U.S.-controlled, or subject to the policies of rich country clubs
like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Global Internet governance can be seen in two parts: technical
governance which prominently includes the governance of what critical
Internet resources, and wider public policies concerning various
economic, social, cultural and political issues. The two most critical
Internet resources are the authoritative root zone server and Internet
names and addresses system, which are managed by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), under contract with
the U.S. Department of Commerce. ICANN, as a U.S. non-profit body, is
subject to U.S. laws in every possible way. To give a simple
illustration, some time back ICANN allowed the .xxx domain space over
the objections of most governments. However, now some U.S. companies
have taken ICANN to court alleging anti-competition practices in
allowing the .xxx domain. The fact that a U.S. court has taken
cognizance of the matter makes it at least possible that the ICANN
decision on instituting .xxx will be struck down, whereby ICANN will
have simply no option other than to shut down this domain space. This
simple illustration makes a mockery of ICANN's claim to be an
independent globally accountable governance system.
*Kill switch legislation*
In any case, ICANN's role is completely dependent on the will and
pleasure of the U.S. government and the relationship, according to
existing contract documents, can be annulled any moment by the U.S.
government. With increased securitisation of the Internet, the single
point control issue has become even more severe for developing
countries. Importantly, the U.S. has been mulling what has been called
the Internet kill switch legislation, which could have application
across the world. The U.S. has not hesitated to use the domain name
system services for extra-territorial enforcement of its intellectual
property laws. In this background, the concerns of other countries about
U.S. control on the critical infrastructure of the Internet are quite
legitimate.
The other area of global governance relates to wider public policy
issues like the role and responsibilities of Internet intermediaries
(like search engines and social networking sites), e-commerce,
cross-border data flows, intellectual property and access to knowledge,
trade and tax, online media, cultural diversity, privacy, security,
human rights, etc. At present, it is either U.S. law which applies
globally by default as most monopoly Internet companies are U.S.-based,
or the policy frameworks are developed by rich country clubs like the
OECD. There is no reason why such policy principles and guidelines
should not be developed by all countries sitting together in the first
place, which is what is proposed the U.N. Committee for Internet-Related
Policies (CIRP) will do.
Developed countries, chiefly the U.S., are using the power of their
monopoly Internet companies and other kinds of strategic advantages to
shape the Internet as per their narrow interests — economic, political,
security and cultural. At the same time, the North has managed to keep
developing countries away from the seats of governance of the Internet.
For this purpose, they use many different strategies. To many developing
countries, they sell the proposition that poorer countries should focus
on the immense developmental potential of the Internet, rather than the
“esoteric” question of its global governance. To global civil society,
the North has somewhat successfully been able to sell an image of itself
as the protector of freedoms and liberties on the Internet, chiefly
freedom of expression, and that of developing countries as
anti-democratic and retrograde, thus arguing that the latter should not
be allowed anywhere near the levers of Internet governance. To the
technical experts, a powerful constituency in the early days of the
Internet, the global North sells the illusion of a bottom-up,
user-driven and built Internet, while the fact is that it is the
policies and practices of the North, as for example through its active
complacency concerning “net neutrality” (a key egalitarian architectural
principle of the Internet), and non-enforcement of competition law
vis-à-vis the unprecedented monopolisation in the Internet business,
that are rapidly eroding the bottom-up nature of the Internet.
*Two misconceptions*
There are two main misconceptions about the Indian CIRP proposal, which
no doubt have been actively propagated by the interested parties, whose
control over the global Internet is threatened by any proposals for
democratisation of the Internet.
The first is that the Indian proposal seeks to take over or fold up the
existing decentralised model of technical and critical Internet
resources governance. India's proposal seeks to do nothing of this sort.
It is largely comfortable with the present system, but certainly not
with America's oversight over this system, which alone it seeks to get
shifted to a body with equal representation of all countries. It is
rather strange that when the U.S. exercises oversight over the technical
governance system, it is said to be of no significance. However, when
exactly the same oversight, nothing more nothing less, is sought to be
transferred to a body where not only the U.S. but all countries are
represented, an alarm is raised about a deep “government” conspiracy to
take control of the Internet.
The second misconception is that India's CIRP proposal is not
multi-stakeholder. The fact is that it is perhaps more multi-stakeholder
than any global governance body which deals with substantive policy
issues (and not just technical matters). In this regard, the Indian
CIRP's design is rather innovative and progressive, whereby four
advisory committees will meet back to back with the inter-governmental
core committee and give regular inputs to it. Additionally, the CIRP is
supposed to have organic connections with the multi-stakeholder open
U.N. Internet Governance Forum. In fact, the U.N. CIRP takes from the
multi-stakeholder model of the OECD's Internet policy mechanism and
further improves it, including in terms of its multi-stakeholderism. It
is once again inexplicable why the same structure within the OECD, which
undemocratically makes Internet policies for the whole world, is not
criticised on the multi-stakeholderism front, but the more
multi-stakeholder model of CIRP faces such intense criticism.
The Internet is becoming an instrument of further entrenching the
geo-economic and geo-political powers of the North, chiefly the U.S.
Developing countries urgently need a global forum that could work
towards democratising the Internet's governance, and developing
principles and policies for shaping the Internet as a democratic and
egalitarian force. In fact, while not willing to publicly disassociate
with their geo-strategic partner, the U.S. and European countries are
also very uncomfortable with the status quo, and are looking for
dialogue-opening moves and proposals from developing countries. Most
countries have been looking to India's leadership position in opening
the dialogue on “enhanced cooperation.” In fact, the CIRP proposal gives
a viable alternative to developing countries over the more authoritarian
proposals floated by countries like China and Russia, and the politics
of technical control that plays out at the International
Telecommunications Union.
It appears that the U.S. has been trying to bring all kinds of pressures
over the Indian government, including through the IT industry in India,
and also appealing to activists involved with freedom of expression over
the Internet. The latter is an issue that all progressive actors must
actively engage with at the national level. At the same time, it is
important not to ignore the grave risk at the global level posed by the
further concentration of economic, social, political and cultural powers
with Northern political entities (mostly the U.S.) and a few global
monopoly Internet companies. Most important is to watch out for the
manner in which these economic and political powers are coming together
in a new digital-political complex, which is well on its way to becoming
a principal global challenge in the near future.
/(Parminder Jeet Singh is the executive director of IT for Change, a
Bangalore-based NGO working on issues of IT and social change. He has
been a special adviser to the Chair of U.N. Internet Governance Forum
and has been coordinator of the premier global civil society network in
the internet governance arena, the Internet Governance Caucus. He has
worked extensively on development issues with respect to global Internet
governance. E-mail: /[email protected]/)/
*--
Srinidhi Raghavan*
Research Assistant
IT for Change
In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net <http://www.ITforChange.net>
Tel:+91-80-2665 4134, 2653 6890. Fax:+91-80-4146 1055
Have you heard about the CITIGEN programme? Visit
www.gender-IS-citizenship.net <http://www.gender-IS-citizenship.net>
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