(long post) Guru,
Parminder's article provides food for thought, but I fear fails to capture the entire picture. It is true that ICANN is not exactly neutral, or at least has taken decisions in the past that appear partisan, but that is in itself a historical 'development' (the sort of development that characterises some kinds of budgets, notably in India), and not precisely reflective of the intent with which it (and associated forums) was created. On May 17, 2012 9:41 AM, "Guru गुरु" <[email protected]> wrote: > India's proposal will help take the web out of U.S. control > Parminder Jeet Singh > 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' I suppose, as an individual engaged with IT, I too am a monopoly, and I too have doubts about the stand taken by our government representatives just now, but I don't suppose that is what Parminder means. > > 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). Replacing US quasi-hegemony over some parts of the way the Net functions with UN hegemony does not bring me much comfort. And India's proposal leaves me with even less. I think we have all (ok, that's silly, many of us have) had our fair share of dealing, engaging, as you put it, with the government, and my personal conclusion is that it is a long way from establishing ways and means to accept such engagement. Its functioning is only minimally democratic at best, and even less participatory. It has no comprehension of the capabilities of this infrastructure to actually provide engagement. Expecting this flawed system to represent our best interests, in tandem with competing power interests from 50 + nations, is Utopian. > 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. > Deconstructed, this sentence is enlightening. There is no way CIRP will function positively 'sitting together' – the suggestion is in itself redolent of ways and means of functioning that may have between relevant when most of the world lay under a colonial yoke. Most of my productive work is carried out without my moving an inch from this seat, and it usually involves engagement with numbers of people, none of whom I need to have sitting together with me, either in time, or in space. And yes, I do meet deadlines. > 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. Perhaps ICANN etc are not the best way to run the internet. Looking at the misery inflicted by rich nations (including some of the BRICS nations) in wars across Asia and Africa, can one seriously believe the UN will do, or even can do, better? I would talk about babies and bathwater, but most of the babies born today will be very lucky to get a clean wipe, never mind a bath. In any case CIRP proposes oversight over ICANN (and presumably ISOC etc), but I cannot for the life of me see how to prevent today's vested interests from influencing CIRP. > 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. This is my point – replacing US hegemony with the UN is hardly a big step forward, although I have every fear it may be a step back. > > 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). 'More' multi-stakeholder is not the same as an unqualified multi-stakeholder. Not by a long chalk, and the dissonance rings like that chalk being flayed against a blackboard. Somewhere in this argument, I keep hearing an echo of 'technical' vs what I do not know, perhaps non-technical? Is non-technical the same as stupid? Is it impossible for technical people to understand or even empathize with human society, and equally impossible for non-technical people to understand why Facebook might have a viable business model? The internet is evolving, and human society touched by the internet is evolving in a certain way, and I have little faith in a government (and its proposals and actions to muzzle the Net, together with its attempts to directly control access in India, and to route the bulk of that access to crony telcos) whose style and thinking is antediluvian, if not actually regressive.
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