Caesura
Let's pause for a moment and look around. First, domain names. Because ICANN is the only entity to shoot at in the “internet governance” realm (even though it really doesn't do internet governance), the ICANN experiment is under sharp attack from several directions. Having lurched forward to give its advice about .xxx, the US government now has few friends when it maintains that ICANN should not be overseen by an intergovernmental organization. ICANN's legitimacy as a forum for discussion of name/address policies (and imposition of mandatory policies when they are supported by consensus) remains as strong as ever, but the intergovernmental sniping is clouding the picture.
Second, regulations drawn from the world of telephones and circuit switches are being applied without change to the internet. The FCC's recent DSL deregulation order contemplates that the Commission will be empowered to require whatever “consumer protection, network reliability, or national security obligation[s]” it decides are appropriate for broadband access providers. CALEA and E911 orders have already come out, and will be applied broadly to a wide range of applications as well as transmission providers. Future orders will likely cover privacy, disability access, truth-in-billing, network reliability, emergency preparedness, national security, and law enforcement requirements. And the FCC has sought comment on what obligations it should impose pursuant to its “Title I authority to further consumer protection in the broadband age.” (Should we rename it the Federal Consumer Protection agency?)
Third, efforts are underway around the world to make it possible for network providers to substitute their walled gardens for what we now think of as our internet. Barton-Dingell is an example of this; so is Television Without Frontiers; and the NGN standards efforts being pursued by the ITU with Cisco's help will make this possible.
Fourth, devices that attach to our internet are also (again) under attack, at least in the US. Broadcast/audio/video flags are under discussion, and devices that don't adhere to the instructions of these flags will become unlawful.
Fifth, all kinds of abuses are being perpetrated in the name of “parity.” Webcasters want extra-copyright rights to transmit online because broadcasters have those rights offline. DSL providers want to be treated the same way as cable companies, and want to ensure that they can exclude any potentially competing services from their networks. Incumbent providers of VoIP services want to ensure that new entrant VoIP services are crushed by regulatory burdens — all in the name of the mystical level playing field.
Pause. Brave engineers assert that technology overcomes all of this. “They can't stop us!” the engineers say. “They'll never be able to track what we're doing.” To put so much faith in technology alone, however, seems naive. It also feels like a Faustian bargain: we'll go underground, avoid all rules, sacrifice any faith in government, in order to satisfy our desire for knowledge and power.
Things aren't going particularly well.
Embarrassment
David Weinberger's post today should be required reading for tech conference organizers. (I'm focusing on tech/communications conferences because I have the sense, or I'm hoping, that other conference organizers have already figured this out.)
Mary Hodder started a good effort here to gather information about non-usual-suspect speakers.