[smc-discuss] Fwd: Defending the threat to the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet
Anivar Aravind
anivar.aravind at gmail.com
Wed Nov 26 09:15:50 PST 2008
I think it is Ok to endorse this statement. What you people think?
We have to respond immediately
Anivar
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: vinay sreenivasa <vinay at itforchange.net>
Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 10:09 PM
Subject: Defending the threat to the public-ness and the egalitarian nature
of the Internet
To: Anivar <anivar.aravind at gmail.com>
Cc: anja at itforchange.net
Hi Anivar,
Hoping to get the support from Swathantra Malayalam Computing for the
internet governance related campaign -
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All,
Apologies for cross-posting.
Most of us tend to take the commons and the public nature of the Internet
for granted. However, increasing corporatisation and control of the Internet
are strongly threatening these fundamental characteristics of the Internet
as we know it. Therefore, six civil society organisations in India have
proposed an open letter to the UN Internet Governance Forum which meets for
its third annual meeting between 3rd and 6th December in Hyderabad. The
letter exhorts urgent global action to ensure that the public-ness and the
egalitarian nature of the Internet are preserved as its essential features.
The possibilities of democracy, equity and social justice in our societies
will be significantly impacted by the extent to which we can achieve this
objective.
The proposed letter is pasted below. If you and/or your organization wish to
endorse this letter, please indicate so in response to this email by the
midnight of 1st December(India time). Please respond offline and not to the
entire mailing list.
The proposed open letter can also be accessed at
http://www.itforchange.net/component/content/article/195-igf-open-letter.html
Thanks,
Vinay.
------------------------------------------------------------
* An Open Letter to the UN Internet Governance Forum
(IGF)
for its 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th
December, 2008
*
*The IGF must ACT NOW against the threat to the
public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet
*
The undersigned wish to express their deep concern that the UN Internet
Governance
Forum (IGF), created by the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005
as an
Internet 'policy dialogue' forum, is largely failing to address key public
interest and
policy issues in global Internet governance – including that of democratic
deficit.
*Who shapes the Internet, as the Internet shapes our new social context?*
The Internet represents the single most important technical advance of our
society in a
long time, so much so that it defines a new emerging social paradigm. The
basic
characteristics of the Internet determine the contours of the emerging
social order in
many important ways. The Internet was conceived as, and still largely is, an
extensive
communication system which is democratizing, and has little respect for
established
social hierarchies. Interactions and associations built over this new
'techno-social'
system have, therefore, held the promise of a more egalitarian society.
The era of innocence of the Internet however appears to be fast approaching
its end.
Today, the Internet of the future – the very near future – is being shaped
insidiously by
dominant forces to further their interests. (See the fact-sheet on the
following page for
some illustrations of this.) Unfortunately, global policy forums have
largely failed to
articulate, much less act on, crucial Internet policy issues, which concern
the
democratic possibilities for our societies.
*The IGF needs to act now!*
As the Internet Governance Forum convenes for its third annual meeting,
between 3rd
and 6th December, 2008, in Hyderabad, India, it must take immediate steps to
anchor
and discuss important global public interest and policy issues involved in
Internet
governance. If it does not act now, it may get seen as a space that only
provides an
illusion of a public policy dialogue, and, consequently, as being co-opted
in furthering
the agenda of dominant forces that are shaping the Internet as per their
narrow
interests. *We therefore strongly urge the IGF to directly address the
following key
global public interest and policy issues:
1. Increasing corporatisation of the Internet
2. Increasing proprietisation of standards and code that go into
building the
Internet
3. Increasing points of control being embedded into the Internet in the
name
of security and intellectual property violations
4. Huge democratic deficit in global Internet governance
*We exhort the IGF to adopt clear directions for engaging with these crucial
public
policy issues. The IGF should come out with a clear work plan at its
forthcoming
meeting in Hyderabad to address the four key areas listed above.
The global community – comprising not only people who currently have access
to the
Internet, but also the un-connected billions who are being impacted by it
nevertheless
– will judge the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the IGF in terms of what
progress it
is able to make on these issues.
*Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
Free Software Foundation - India
IT for Change, Bangalore
Knowledge Commons, New Delhi
*For endorsements and/or more information, please contact Anja Kovacs
email: anja (at) itforchange.net, tel: +91 80 266554134, mobile: +91
9611747212
------------------------------------------------------------
* Information Sheet
How the Public-ness and Egalitarian Nature of the Internet is
Threatened
– Some Examples
Corporatisation of the Internet*
Largely unsuspected by most of its users, the Internet is rapidly changing
from being a
vast 'public sphere', with a fully public ownership and a non-proprietary
nature, to a
set of corporatised privately-owned networks.
On the one hand, telecom companies are carving out the Internet into
privately-owned
networks – controlling the nature of transactions over these networks. They
seek to
differentially charge content providers, while also building wholly private
networks
offering exclusive content relay services. Developments like video/TV over
Internet
Protocol and the provision of controlled and selective Internet services
over mobiles
are contributing to increasing network-operators' control over the Internet,
with a
corresponding erosion of its public-ness.
On the other hand, the commons of the Internet is also being overwhelmed and
squeezed out by a complete domination of a few privately owned
mega-applications
such as Google, Facebook, Youtube etc.
*Proprietarisation of standards and code that build the Internet*
One of the main ways of appropriating the commons of the Internet is through
the
increasing use of proprietary and closed standards and code in building the
Internet
system. Such appropriation allows the extortion of illegitimate rent out of
the many
new forms of commons-based activities that are being made possible through
the
Internet.
*Embedding control points in the Internet*
A growing confluence of corporatist and statist interests has led to the
embedding of
more and more means of control into the Internet in a manner that greatly
compromises citizens' rights and freedoms. Whether it is the pressure on
Internet
Service Providers to examine Internet traffic for 'intellectual property'
violations; or
imposition of cultural and political controls on the Internet by states
within their
boundaries; or ITU's work on IP trace-back mechanisms; or the tightening of
US
control over the global Internet infrastructure in the name of securing the
root zone file
and the domain name system, these new forms of controlling the Internet are
being
negotiated among dominant interests away from public scrutiny and wider
public
interest-based engagements.
*Democratic deficit in global Internet governance*
The current global Internet governance regime – a new-age privatized
governance
system professing allegiance mostly to a single country, the US – has proven
to be an
active instrument of perpetuation of dominant commercial and geo-political
interests.
Lately, OECD countries have begun some work on developing public policy
principles
that, due to the inherently global nature of the Internet, can be expected
to become
globally applicable. It is quite unacceptable that OECD countries shirk from
discussing
the same public policy issues at global public policy forums like the IGF
that they
discuss among themselves at OECD meetings. Apparently, developing countries
are
expected to focus on finding ways to reach connectivity to their people, and
not burden
themselves with higher-level Internet governance issues!
People's and communities' right to self-determination and participation in
governance
of issues that impact their lives should underpin global Internet
governance.
--
Vinay Sreenivasa
IT for Change
91-98805-95032vinay at itforchange.net
http://itforchange.nethttp://india.is-watch.net/http://is-watch.net
--
Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free Software
industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is
like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.
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