[Chapter-delegates] Chapter Leaders Community : PREVIEW: Announcing the Internet Society's first Global Internet Report

[CW Mail]

Dear Kathy Brown:
I am sure that when we see it the prospective Report will be essential reading for us all. I do hope that the Report as a whole proves to be more balanced than the Executive Summary, which while emphasising significant successes is silent regarding substantial swathes of concern which if they are not addressed by the Internet Society in the first instance, will prejudice the continued success of the Internet in the foreseeable future. Allow me to mention a few headline issues; I cannot do more at short notice and in the absence of an advance copy of the Report as a whole:
1.	The concept of the Open Internet deserves to be better explained. On the upside, indeed, the openness of the Internet is essential. On the down side – at least in Europe – ISOC has given the impression that Open Internet, as a concept, is in opposition to Network Neutrality. That is clearly wrong. The Executive Summary does not refer, once, to Network Neutrality.

2.	Competition: The Internet has facilitated extraordinary degrees of concentration in certain markets and growing indications of abuses of the resulting dominant positions. This problem is not mentioned in the Executive Summary at all. In that context, the paragraph at the bottom of page 6 is frankly disingenuous.
3.	'Open' Multistakeholder governance is not nearly open enough. Within the Internet Society, Civil society and Users' interests still take a back seat as evinced by several instances of ISOC nominations privileging the technical branches of ISOC and the ISOC staff.
Beyond ISOC itself, it has become perennially clear that except for enormous voluntary effort and private financing of time and travel, Civil Society and Users' interests are grossly under-represented in the decision making processes. ISOC has done little to correct this situation.

However, this is no longer a trivial matter of ostensibly achieving 'balance' in several directions (geography, gender, stakeholder etc.). Nowadays it risks undermining the multistakeholder principle itself. Indeed, unless governments can rely on the multistakeholder system to deliver the public interest, they will not accept it. There is little evidence of the commercial and technical stakeholders delivering the public interest in terms of cultural diversity, fair competition, privacy, security and the digital divide.

4.	Points of detail: 

-	overall, the message would carry greater conviction were it less 'dythrambique'. “Forsooth they do protest too much”.

-	Please delete “how many of us could have imagined” (p.3).
Among others, I did (1996) which – incidentally – is why Europe 
abandoned OSI at the time.

-		please delete “so-called” (p.9)
- 	the graphics require a lot of attention: the colour contrasts are counter-intuitive
	the small print is illegible (white on pale blue is a no-no!)
I trust that you and the authors of the Report will take these comments and suggestions in good part. The World is watching us. I urge ISOC to avoid unnecessary mis-steps in this and other contexts
Best regards to you all
Christopher Wilkinson


On 05 Jun 2014, at 20:07, "Jozef Halbersztadt via Internet Society" <Mail at ConnectedCommunity.org> wrote:

> Colleagues,
> 
> I am supporting Richards opinion although the attached files aren't
> coming though in mail.
> 
> The Just Net Coalition's declaration is here:
> 
> http://justnetcoalition.org/delhi-declaration
> 
> 
> Best
> Jozef Halbersztadt
> 
> -- 
> 'JotHal' jozef [dot] halbersztadt [at] gmail [dot] com
> Internet Society Poland http://www.isoc.org.pl
> 
> On 5 June 2014 17:55, Richard Hill via Internet Society
> 
> ------Original Message------
> 
> Dear Kathy,
> 
> I join others in thanking you for this excellent work.  While I find that
> Alejandro's comments below are too critical, I do think that some of the
> points he raises are valid and deserve to be addressed in future reports.
> 
> In particular, the growth of the Internet has not been as fast as the growth
> of mobile, see the attached excerpts from one of my forthcoming papers.
> 
> And some in civil society have raised warnings regarding what the future
> might hold, see for example the following excerpts from the Just Net
> Coalition's input to Netmundial:
> 
> "The Internet is reorganising public institutions, including those related
> to governance, welfare, health, and education, as well as key sectors such
> as media, communications, transport and finance. It has transformed the way
> we do many things but the benefits promised for all have not been adequately
> realized. On the contrary - we have seen mass surveillance, abusive use of
> personal data and their use as a means of social and political control; the
> monopolization, commodification and monetisation of information and
> knowledge; inequitable flows of finances between poor and rich countries;
> and erosion of cultural diversity.  Many technical, and thus purportedly
> 'neutral', decisions have in reality led to social injustice as technology
> architectures, often developed to promote vested interests, increasingly
> determine social, economic, cultural and political relationships and
> processes.
> 
> "Opportunities for the many to participate in the very real benefits of the
> Internet, and to fully realize its enormous potential, are being thwarted by
> growing control of the Internet by those with power - large corporations and
> certain national governments. They use their central positions of influence
> to consolidate power and to establish a new global regime of control and
> exploitation; under the guise of favouring liberalization, they are in
> reality reinforcing the dominance and profitability of major corporations at
> the expense of the public interest, and the overarching position of certain
> national interests at the expense of global interests and well being.
> 
> "Existing governance arrangements for the global Internet are inadequate.
> They suffer from a lack of democracy; an absence of legitimacy,
> accountability and transparency; excessive corporate influence and
> regulatory capture; and too few opportunities for effective participation by
> people, especially from developing countries.  The situation can be remedied
> only through fundamental changes to the current governance arrangements."
> 
> Such concerns could perhaps be addressed in future reports.
> 
> To conclude, I do think that the report is valuable and my comments above
> are meant as suggestions for future improvements, not as criticisms.
> 
> Thanks again and best,
> Richard
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Alejandro Pisanty via Internet Society
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alejandro Pisanty via Internet Society

------Original Message------

Dear Kathy,
thanks for providing this preview. I hope comments made on it can still be taken up both in the preface and in the body of the document itself. 
I think many readers - I certainly - will find the report lame for not addressing some of the most pressing policy issues; and, by concentrating on access, too much into territory that the ITU covers well, more traditionally, and in a more established way. 
The snake chronogram illustrates this last point. More than half the landmarks shown are telecommunications, not Internet, landmarks. 
Further in the figure the Tunis Agenda of 2005 is part of WSIS; WSIS did not finish in 2003 as the figure would suggest. Why expose ourselves to such vulnerabilities that can be challenged from a factual-accuracy point of view?
I dislike the use of the phrase "penetration of users" - it is either penetration or users. Or at least a less infelicitous turn of phrase please! (I am standing tight against a wall as I write this.) 
The figure with the two concatenated circles suggests that W3C is a next step in a succession that includes the IETF when it is in fact a different type of institution and operates in a different layer. For some readers this may be suggestive that ISOC itself blurs the Web-Internet distinction. 
In that same figure the other circle also has at least one problem, giving particular pride of place to NetMundial. This may turn out to be nearsighted and strategically unsound. 
I will come back with a bit more comment.
One last point, may I suggest that this discussion be extended to the Chapter Delegates email list? I am lucky to be sitting at a computer for reading the document and writing this urgent response but would be awfully hampered were I on mobile and a weaker link.
Again thanks for producing the report and for sharing the preview.
Yours,
Alejandro Pisanty
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