RE: [ALSC-Forum] A query

[Bruce Young]

Karl wrote:


>First, the history that the Internet was "built" by big corporate
>interests is false.  The very early Internet came largely out of the US
>military working with universities and some of the smaller
>research/aerospace companies.

Yes.  My first involvement was from the military side.

>What does this show?  Simply that the net is the creation of many hands in
>many countries, not merely investments from large corporations; so
>regulatory control of the net should not be blindly handed over to them in
>some sort of exercise of historical revisionism.

No kidding.  But even if they *were* correct, its very importance today
would still demand public regulation!

>So, again asking: What does this show?  It shows that the private
>ownership is not a shield against public regulation.

So true.

>Should it be a single entity like ICANN trying to do some sort of central
>planning (i.e. five year plans? ;-), or should it be done in a more
>distributed fashion?

Yes!  :)  Seriously, I think the exact form is less essental than the
assurance of public accountablility through citizen involvement.

Bruce Young
Portland, Oregon
byoung651@home.com
http://members.home.net/byoung651/index.html