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Why Talk About Internet Governance?
andyo wrote to mention an article on the O' Reilly network entitled Why They're Talking About Internet Governance. The piece goes into the history of how things came to be in the first place, as regards the distribution of internet domain space. From the article: "Having established commercial beachheads on the Internet, corporations wanted to own the whole terrain. Through the World Intellectual Property Organization ... they were designing a new regime for handling domain names. It was nicely suited to large corporations ... Within weeks of the successful conclusion of the Global Incorporation Alliance Workshop, a lash-up of Internet leaders, Network Solutions, and other back room forces popped a proposal of their own on a surprised and unprepared Internet community. The proposal ... ultimately led to ICANN. Most stakeholders were left out of the decision--even many large corporations were angry--but the Commerce Department approved the proposal, happy to wash its hands of the issue. "
Here's my #1 problem with governments: the committee. These mini-groups tend to debate over what is best for them, not their constituents.
Example of typical bad true Democracy: 51 out of 100 people love large bananas. They vote to regulate bananas, and now only large bananas are available.
Example of typical bad representative democracy: 5 representatives of 100 people form a banana size committee. 2 of them have friends or family who grow medium sized bananas. 51 of 100 citizens prefer large bananas. The 2 reps convince the other 3 to set the definition of 'large' as equal to the medium sized bananas, in exchange for adding pork to the law that helps the other 3 reps.
Example of free market democracy: 51 out of 100 people like large bananas. 30 like medium, and 19 like tiny. Banana growers grow all 3 sizes, selling them at a price set by the supply of certain sizes and the demand for those sizes.
The first two forms of democracy are, well, bananas. Nuts! This is how we live today in the US. The UN is even worse,with almost zero input by the constituents.
Internet governance is best delegated to corporations and individuals. Profit is merely a reflection of a company's ability to meet the demands (price, quality, performance) of their customers. Profit can not be demanded. Profit can not be stolen. Profit can not be fraudulent for long. Except when a company is given monopoly power by government mandate (schools, roads, etc).
The Internet is a group of individuals who pick an ISP. The groups of ISPs choose a backbone provider. The backbones choose to interconnect.
Why is governance needed? If a backbone decides to break away, customers and ISPs will choose another backbone. If an ISP decides to censor or charge too much, users can select another ISP (except when government forces zero choice).
There is zero need for government involvement, except to tax, regulate, censor and control.