Comments on "Clean Sheet"
At Large StudyThe ICANN Board's Yokohama resolution called for the At Large study
to "be structured so as to allow and encourage the participation of organizations
worldwide…" By acknowledging the importance of the Internet users, the staff
report seems to have expanded that view a bit, but not nearly enough. My comments
address the appropriate participants and scope of Internet governance.
First, the
idea that the net exists outside of the "real" world is hogwash. There's nothing
virtual about the bumpy streets and dirty air that result from the telcos and cable
companies regularly tearing up my street to bring the Internet's signal to my computer.
And the 10,000-hummingbird-strong din broadcast from the "Internet Hotel" down the
street is not virtual birdsong. Nor the blood virtual that could be spilt in a war
for the oil needed to feed the webs voracious appetite for electric power. And the
pollution from high tech production processes and the disposal nightmare of obsolete
hardware are by no means virtual. Nor are the steel bars virtual that jail our newly
criminalized youth hackers who brush up against the house of cards that is the net.
These issues alone make the Internet a cause for civil concern.
Next, turn one's
eyes to the various economic and social divides that are being caused or exasperated
by the net. Here in my country (USA) we call it the digital divide and are committing
billions of dollars into an effort to narrow it. And the G8 recently created a global
Digital Opportunities Task Force to seek solutions for the economic divide between
north and south, developed and underdeveloped that the Internet fosters. Here we
have national and global governments making huge investments to meliorate the Internet's
impact.
Finally, think of the Tuvalese (.TV) and Laotians (.LA) whose nations are
being transformed by an unforeseen use of the Internet's domain name system. Who
or what is next?
As we enter the 21st century, it's increasingly apparent that
the quaint idea of some stakeholders governing the Internet is not a viable long
term solution. There's only one world. And there's only one Internet. The Internet's
impact is on all the people of that world. The people must govern it, not be governed
by it.
I suggest we make this a real clean sheet study. Let's hoist those sheets,
fill them with air and transform them into the sails that carry us on a path to a
just and equitable Internet governance structure; a structure that recognizes that
the people, working through their governments, are the Internet's proper governors.
Thomas
Lowenhaupt
Vice Chair, Community Board 3, New York City
TOML@communisphere.com
End.