[Chapter-delegates] [Internet Policy] Worth Note!

Wed May 6 07:18:24 PDT 2015

Dear Sally,

thank you for jumping in right now in this very real time discussion, because this is the great value of ISOC as a forum. 

Although Michael Kende already trowed his hat on the discussion of zero rating as per FCC, the steps Facebook has taken across the world are really affecting people outside the realm of the FCC. But this is the only fixed reference I have for the time being.

I suggest we agree (or agree not to agree) on a few basic assumptions&principles, before we can effectively discuss this new proposal by Facebook, which I think we should do ASAP and be able to take positions in our countries. Some people may see it differently but this is my take:

1. Universal Access. A legacy concept form the old telecom world, we assume that even in purely private and competitive markets, there is a public interest in guaranteeing (who? The Government?) access to all users to basic telecom services (voice?)
2. Broadband Access. There is no 100% agreement on how the transitivity of the Universal Access to Broadband Access should happen, and if it is also a public guarantee
3. Mobile Broadband Access. As far as the “unconnected” Facebook argues to protect, it is probably a fact, that they are much closer to get any kind of access (Telecom, Broadband Internet and Social Networks) though mobile service providers, before they can get a fixed access. And to my knowledge in most cases such services are provided mostly by private companies under commercial conditions.
4. Networks operators vs. content providers. Some countries make this separation, which is less and less realistic in terms of business models, but helps to regulate one side and forbear to regulate the other. Nevertheless in some (social) networks it can be argued that the content provider is the user herself.
5. Open platforms like the www (W3C) are not only open to all users that have effective access, but also content neutral, multi-stakeholder supported/managed, etc. etc. etc. all we fight for in ISOC. 

For the case of Facebook in India Colombia, etc. I have the stupid feeling, that there has been a shortcut of this layered open system, and that there is an open agreement between

A) On the one hand private and for profit mobile network operators, which always charge a minimum for voice services, and love to subsidise handsets that increasingly have broadband capabilitie
B) And on the other, a private and for profit Company (Facebook the Company) widespread social network structure (i.e. Facebook), that makes a good living out of selling its users data to other service a goods providers, 

where B) is ready to keep subsidising A) marginal broadband capacity of their (mobile access) network for free access to their walled garden (Facebook the social network) at zero rate (for broadband only) because the user still needs to pay for the basic access service, and still needs the subsidised handset.

From my personal perspective the FCC was dam right to including in their Net Neutrality proposal mobile broadband access and the limits to zero rating under Title II, as long as the US has no better law, or even more important, makes clear what is still relevant in the separation of networks and content. But your (ISOC HQ) position on the FCC Net Neutrality ruling has been not been clear to me so far. 

Now please let us know what ISOCs overall position on the Facebook version of low income country Universal Access is, privacy included.

Best regards

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez
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email: crg at isoc-cr.org
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+506 8837 7173 (cel)
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San Jose, COSTA RICA

> On May 6, 2015, at 6:45 AM, Sally Wentworth <wentworth at isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> This has been a great discussion on a topic that has a lot of dimensions. 
> 
> One that hasn’t come up as much on the list are the privacy/security considerations of the internet.org service.   We know that there is a cost associated with “free”.   We also know that this service is aimed at providing service to people in poverty.  A few articles have noted that the platform doesn’t support encryption - information about users of the internet.org service will be shared with the mobile operators (and, presumably, others). (http://www.medianama.com/2015/05/223-facebooks-internet-org-privacy/).  From what I read, the terms of service go well beyond the usual Facebook terms.  
> 
> 
> Dan notes that these kinds of services lead to  "people settling for less than they could have got, indeed less than they had a right to expect.”  
> 
> I wonder whether there is the kind of meaningful transparency we’d expect for end users?  I fully realize that we haven’t gotten to meaningful transparency across a range of full Internet services but the fact that this aims at people who may be accessing “the Internet” for the first time and who likely have low digital literacy troubles me.  Is it the case that developing country users should settle for less in terms of security and privacy in addition to all the rest of the limitations that go with this service?  Is that a fair reading?
> 
> I’d be interested in views on this aspect. 
> 
> Sally
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 5, 2015, at 6:31 PM, Dan McGarry <dmcgarry at imagicity.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 5/6/15 9:15 AM, John Laprise wrote:
>>> I respectfully disagree. Users will invariably see both zero point services
>>> and "full" Internet, compare them and make choices accordingly.
>> 
>> What we typically get, though, is no opportunity to compare. Offering zero-rated services is used as an excuse to maintain fees that exclude those who have the least, on the pretext that they're already getting a comparable service.
>> 
>> Forgive me, but as you pointed out to others, you're in danger of universalising local truths. Most telcos in the developing world are in positions of significant influence, both economically and politically, and market forces are not nearly as powerful or widely felt as they are in the US.
>> 
>> Hence my use of the term travesty. I mean it quite specifically: a charade wherein zero-rating is deliberately conflated with internet and used as an excuse not to take other steps to provide actual internet to people with limited means.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Dan McGarry      dmcgarry at imagicity.com
>> 
>> Photos:          http://humansofvanuatu.com/
>>                http://imagicity.com/
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> 
> Sally Wentworth
> wentworth at isoc.org
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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