The Webʼs Regulatory Racket
by Bret Swanson 09.17.09
As the fruits of the Internet spread across the world,
global bureaucrats salivate. Private-sector
leadership of the Net has created history's most
powerful platform for commerce and culture. But
with a key guardian document of a free 'Net set to
expire at September's end, this successful model is
under siege.
European Union Competition Commissioner
Viviane Reding has called for a "G-12 for the
Internet" to make "recommendations" on the
operation of the Internet. Soviet-trained Hamadoun
Touré, secretary-general of the International
Telecommunications Union, wants governments
and his U.N. agency to exercise more "muscle" on
the Internet. And Russia and Brazil have made
similar noises.
But noise is the problem. Just as electromagnetic
noise can degrade a communications signal,
political noise can similarly encumber an economy
– in this case, the global digital economy.
Sept. 30 will mark the end of the Joint Project
Agreement. Stretching back in several incarnations
over the last decade, the JPA is a compact between
the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Internet
Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN),
the California nonprofit that administers domain
names and IP addresses, essentially the digital
map and logical space of the Internet. Instead of
injecting politics into cyberspace, the modest U.S.
role has shielded the Net from would-be meddlers.
But as America's mostly hands-off stewardship
winds down, what mischief might October bring?
The rise of the Net is a story of scientists and
engineers cooperating on technical challenges, and
of private companies deploying hundreds of billions
of dollars worth of network infrastructure. Yes, the
embryonic Net dawned as a Pentagon ARPA
project, and many government scientists have
contributed along the way. But the framework and
function of the Internet's logical layer remained
almost totally free of politics. The Internet was built
and is now operated by private companies.
How has the world fared under the existing model?
In the 10 years of the Commerce-ICANN
relationship, Web users around the globe have
grown from 300 million to almost 2 billion. World
Internet traffic blossomed from around 10 million
gigabytes per month to almost 10 billion, a near
1,000-fold leap. As the world economy grew by
approximately 50%, Internet traffic grew by
100,000%. Under this decade of private sector
leadership, moreover, the number of Internet users
in North America grew around 150% while the
number of users in the rest of the world grew
almost 600%. World growth outpaced U.S. growth.
.com .net .edu .us .cn
.eu .whatever
Can we really digest this historic shift? In this brief
period, the portion of the globe's population that
communicates electronically will go from negligible
to almost total. From a time when even the elite
accessed relative spoonfuls of content, to a time in
the near future when the masses will access all
recorded information.
These advances do not manifest a crisis of Internet
governance.
As for a real crisis? See what happens when
politicians take the Internet away from the
engineers who, in a necessarily cooperative
fashion, make the whole thing work. Criticism of
mild U.S. government oversight of ICANN is hardly
reason to invite micromanagement by an additional
190 governments.
There is a crucial analogy between the physical
laws that govern communications technologies and
the man-made laws that govern people. It takes the
pure, noiseless glass of optical fiber to carry laser
light around the world. The Internet Protocol's
simple, common language allows billions of diverse
digital devices to plug into a universal platform.
Likewise, simple and stable political rules are
essential for the transmission of unpredictable but
productive human endeavor. Too much noise
disrupts the signal, whether an Internet
transmission, business activity or political speech.
There are, of course, legitimate disputes over
technology and language. And groups like the
U.N.'s Internet Governance Forum have been
created to hash out these important matters.
ICANN, too, has been slow to fulfill one of its key
mandates: to solidify the path to permanent private-
sector leadership so no government, foreign or
domestic, can exert undue influence. This is the
chief problem that must be addressed by Sept. 30.
The rush of international organizations and
governments seeking more power over Internet
governance threatens to destabilize the Internet's
core. Plunging this crucial global resource into the
political realm would fragment the Internet and
undermine one of its fundamental virtues –
universality. Instead of empowering global users,
the politicization of the Net could substitute
posturing and populism for sound technology, sever
global connectivity, and stifle commercial and
cultural creativity. The Internet itself is the true
multilateral instrument of diversity and innovation,
not the politicians groping for control in its name.
Are the dual ascents of globalization and the
Internet a coincidence? Could we have brought 500
million Chinese and Indians out of desperate
poverty without the digital platform that connects
the world? Would we know of the deep but hidden
thirst for reform in Iran? In the years ahead, what
further economic and civic fruits might the Internet
yield?
We can only hope a free Internet lives so we might
find out.
Bret Swanson is president of the technology
research and strategy firm Entropy Economics
LLC.