Re: [ALSC-Forum] A query

[Vittorio Bertola]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2001 17:42:23 -0700, you wrote:

>> Now, even if single parts of the Internet are private and for-profit,
>
>Not "single parts".  Almost all.

Doesn't matter. The sum of single private properties is a public good,
exactly like the sum of your own land and my own land and all other people's
pieces of land makes up the nation's territory. Most countries of the world
implement the concept of "private property" (some others, to be honest,
outlaw it), but this does not mean that the collectivity does not have the
right to regulate it, and even to take it away from you, in some cases.

>Sorry, that is nonsense.  The media are *not* "regulated to
>maximize the interest of the public", and the very thought is offensive. 
>They are only regulated to protect certain narrowly defined public
>interests, and the rest -- 99.9% of the activity -- is totally
>unregulated, and that is most definitely the way we want it to be.  We 
>do not want our freedom of expression "regulated to maximize the 
>interest of the public."

We who? I guess this is a matter of political views, and also of culture
(generally speaking, the degree of importance given to private property in
respect to public interest is absolutely different between Europe and the
US). So I respect your opinion, but I stay with mine. By the way, the theory
says that capitalism and markets self-regulation work only in a situation
where all consumers are perfectly informed, so that they can actually choose
the best offer. This is why freedom of speech and anti-trust enforcement in
media markets are absolutely vital to prevent a capitalistic system from
becoming an oligarchy. Media is the sector where regulation is more
necessary, even in an extremistic capitalistic society.

>interest through the operation of a free market?  In the case of ICANN 
>in particular, you are advocating creation of a gigantic international 
>regulatory structure without considering at all the question of whether 
>what is being regulated merits that infrastructure.

I'll consider it now, then. I think that the Internet is and will be more
and more a crucial part of the way our society develops its future. It will
replace television as the main world media, just as television replaced
radio and radio replaced newspapers. Now, for the aforementioned reasons I
think that preventing any powerful economical lobby from gaining its control
simply by throwing money at the problem is necessary to prevent our society
from becoming an Orwellian one. I don't want communism and I don't want a
gigantic bureaucracy. But I want to be granted my freedom of speech. I want
to be able to say that a given product sucks without seeing my domain taken
away with an UDRP. I want to be able to put up a site that anyone in the
world can visit, without having to choose second hand names because all the
first hand ones are being exploited for money. I want to be free to use my
e-mail without being harassed by tons of advertising. All of this requires
regulation. In fact, any civil society needs regulation - the political
system without regulation is called anarchy, or the jungle law. 

And I don't even want a cyber-feudalism such as "this is my little piece of
the network, and I am the absolute ruler of it, so if you don't like me,
f*** you and go away". This could work in the early years of the Internet,
in a naive and homogeneous environment. Applied to large scale, it would
bring us back to the Middle Ages.

Anyway (also to respond to Karl) I do think that regulation has to be done
in a devoluted way, leaving decisions at the most local and distributed
possible level. ICANN could be a sort of a God-empowered world government
that's still waiting for its French revolution, but it has to be kept
lightweight.

>> So the fact that you own a piece of the Internet does not give you any
>> special right to write its regulation
>
>That is false.  The owners of computers certainly have regulatory
>concerns that people who don't own computers simply don't share.  The 
>owners and operators of automobiles certainly have more to say about 
>regulation of automobiles than those who don't own or operate 
>automobiles, for example.

Including those pedestrians that will be killed by cars running at 80 mph
through a village because owners and operators of automobiles like to do so?
-- 
.oRo.oTo.oFo.oMo vb.
Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology

DISCLAIMER, PLEASE NOTE: This communication is intended only for use by the
addressee. It may contain confidential or privileged information. 
Transmission, distribution and/or copy cannot be permitted. Please notify
immediately the sender by replying if you are not the intended recipient.