воскресенье, 26 февраля 2012 г.

Суддя скасував забезпечення позову щодо тимчасового зупинення роботи веб-сайту: roadcontrol.org.ua («Дорожній контроль»)

http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/21562282

Справа № 2-1346/12

У Х В А Л А

і м е н е м У к р а ї н и

16.02.2012 Деснянський районний суд м. Києва в складі:

головуючого судді

Саламон О.Б.

при секретарі

Солодухіній Н.С.

розглянувши заяву представника ОСОБА_3 –ОСОБА_4 про скасування заходів забезпечення позову, -

В С Т А Н О В И В:

ОСОБА_5 звернувся до суду з позовною заявою до ОСОБА_3 про захист честі, гідності та ділової репутації.

Представником позивача через канцелярію суду 09 лютого 2012 року подано заяву про забезпечення позову у вигляді тимчасового зупинення роботи веб-сайту: roadcontrol.org.ua («Дорожній контроль») в мережі-Інтернет до моменту винесення судового рішення, посилаючись на те, що на час розгляду цивільної справи в суді продовжується розміщення на зазначеному сайті інформація про ОСОБА_5, яка провокує висловлювання відвідувачів сайту у вигляді погроз, образ та наклепів.

Ухвалою Деснянського районного суду м. Києва від 10 лютого 2012 року, забезпечено позов у вигляді тимчасового зупинення роботи веб-сайту: roadcontrol.org.ua («Дорожній контроль») в мережі-Інтернет до моменту винесення судового рішення по цивільній справі за позовом ОСОБА_5 до ОСОБА_3 про захист честі, гідності, ділової репутації.

16 лютого 2012 року представником ОСОБА_3 –ОСОБА_4 подано заяву про скасування заходів забезпечення позову, яка мотивована тим, що спір вирішено по суті, заходи забезпечення позову не є співмірними та зачіпають інтереси інших осіб та містить посилання на порушення процесуального порядку винесення ухвали.

Заслухавши пояснення сторін, вивчивши матеріали справи, суд дійшов висновку щодо задоволення заяви про скасування заходів забезпечення позову виходячи з наступного.

У відповідності до чинного законодавства, а саме ч. 1 ст. 151 ЦПК України та ч. 1 ст. 153 ЦПК України, суд за заявою осіб, які беруть участь у справі, може вжити заходи забезпечення позову. Заява про забезпечення позову розглядається судом, у провадженні якого перебуває справа, в день її надходження без повідомлення відповідача та інших осіб, які беруть участь у справі. Сторони в судове засідання не викликалися.

Згідно з ч.ч.3-4 ст. 154 ЦПК України заходи забезпечення позову можуть бути скасовані судом, який розглядає справу. Особа, щодо якої вжито заходи забезпечення позову без її повідомлення, може подати заяву про їх скасування, яка розглядається судом протягом двох днів.

Враховуючи ту обставину, що тимчасове зупинення роботи веб-сайту: roadcontrol.org.ua («Дорожній контроль») в мережі-Інтернет може вплинути на права інших осіб –користувачів мережі-Інтернет, суд скасовує заходи забезпечення позову.

Наведені в заяві посилання на допущені порушення процесуального порядку винесення ухвали про забезпечення позову та вирішення спору по суті є необґрунтованими.

На підставі викладеного, керуючись ст. ст. 154,168,208-210 ЦПК, суд, -

У Х В А Л И В :

Заяву задовольнити.

Скасувати заходи забезпечення позову, визначені в ухвалі Деснянського районного суду м. Києва від 10 лютого 2012 року, якими вжито заходи забезпечення позову у вигляді тимчасового зупинення роботи веб-сайту: roadcontrol.org.ua («Дорожній контроль») в мережі-Інтернет до моменту винесення судового рішення по цивільній справі за позовом ОСОБА_5 до ОСОБА_3 про захист честі, гідності, ділової репутації.

Копію ухвали направити на виконання до ТОВ «Інтернет Інвест»в особі директора ОСОБА_6, код ЄДРПОУ 32493292, юридична адреса: 01011, м. Київ, вул. П. Мирного, 11, адреса фактичного місцезнаходження: 01033, м. Київ, вул. Гайдара,50, адреса для передачі поштових повідомлень через кур’єра: 03150, м. Київ, вул. Велика Васильківська, 111/113) для відновлення надання послуг хостінгу, що включають роботи, необхідні для забезпечення постійного доступу до веб-сайту roadcontrol.org.ua -«Дорожній контроль», а саме виділення дискового простору, засобів доступу та адміністрування сервера, роботи з адміністрування системи, реєстрацію і підтримку адреси, резервного копіювання, можливість виконання програм та скриптів, можливість мати безліч поштових адрес, доступ до сайту по протоколу FTP, можливість мати адміністративну панель, за допомогою якої можна здійснювати контроль і керування веб-сайтом, можливість настроювання поштових скриньок, систему збору статистики, установку і запуск додатків тощо.

Ухвала може бути оскаржена до Апеляційного суду м. Києва шляхом подання через Деснянський районний суд м. Києва протягом п’яти днів з дня її проголошення, апеляційної скарги.

Суддя Деснянського районного суду м. Києва

О.Б. Саламон

суббота, 25 февраля 2012 г.

Infrastructure commons – the future of connectivity

Infrastructure commons – the future of connectivity
Last OneWebDay - Sep 22 2011 - ISOC-NY hosted the Bob Frankston talk: Infrastructure commons – the future of connectivity in which he laid out the "Frankston Doctrine" - the heretical view that communities should build and operate their own communications infrastructure, entirely dispensing with telcos and usage-based billing. Long a lone voice in the wilderness, Frankston's ideas are now beginning to get some love. On Valentine's Day - Feb 14 2012 - OneWebDay founder Susan Crawford used her Bloomberg column The Case for Publicly Owned Internet Service to rail against State laws that prohibit municipal broadband initiatives.

Now, on Feb 25 2012, comes a searing GigaOM opinion piece from UK analyst Martin Geddes titled It’s the end of the line for telco .

Geddes opens:

The telecom industry has reached its peak. This is it. Look around you. Whatever you are doing in telecom, however you are making money in the field, it isn’t going to get better than this. This industry has acquired its maximum share of the economy. We are the digital railroad business at the height of the railroad barons. The only way now is down. We’ll see maybe one or two more mini-booms, a few more troughs, but the long-term trend has just gone into reverse.

and concludes:

Home networks don’t need service providers. You just buy a box and plug it in. Street-level networks don’t either — you can build a simple resilient mesh. Nor do town networks that join the kids with their school. We fundamentally don’t need communications service providers to manage data transmission. As long as we have a means to fund infrastructure, just as we manage with roads, we can do it for ourselves.
This is the beginning of the end of the Information Superrailroad, where all the bits are scarce and billable. Broadband ISP service is a branch line to nowhere.
Unlicensed wireless is the automobile, and local open fibers are the roads. It doesn’t carry very much very far right now, but it will. And with it, the fate of the telecom industry as constituted today is sealed. Like with the railroads, telcos will carry ever more traffic, and will protect themselves with political power. But their heyday is over, and a new disruptive model has emerged.

Bob Frankston will speak at the ISOC-DC event Connecting Everyone! Mesh Networks, Public Internet and the Drive Towards Universal Access on March 1 2012. There will be a live webcast.

Obama administration on Thursday announced

Obama administration on Thursday announced what it calls its “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” a long-awaited framework suggesting how companies should protect consumer information online.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/faq-whats-in-the-privacy-bill-of-rights/2012/02/23/gIQA5AGcWR_story.html

Експертний семінар «Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики»::Новини організації-Новини-Інститут Медіа Права

Експертний семінар «Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики»::Новини організації-Новини-Інститут Медіа Права
24 лютого 2012 року

Першого березня 2012 року Інститут Медіа Права проведе експертний семінар на тему «Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики». Семінар буде присвячений актуальним питанням регулювання роботи веб-сайтів та діяльності провайдерів в Україні.

Широкого резонансу в українському суспільстві набули ситуації із закриттям таких веб-ресурсів як Ex.ua, «Дорожній контроль» та Infostore. В усьому світі дискутуються питання щодо відповідальності власників онлайн-ресурсів та інших посередників в інтернеті, зокрема за розміщення контенту та висловлювання на форумах, у блогах і соціальних мережах. Ще одним питанням є встановлення статусу ЗМІ для веб-сайтів та можливості запровадження їх державної реєстрації.

Протягом заходу будуть презентовані та обговорені такі питання:

• існуючі законопроекти, які обмежують свободу слова в інтернеті;

• стандарти Європейського союзу у питаннях відповідальності посередників в інтернеті, зокрема за висловлювання на форумах і у блогах;
• особливості законодавства США;
• конфліктні ситуації із закриттям українських веб-сайтів;
• можливі шляхи розвитку регулювання діяльності в інтернеті.

Захід розрахований на представників мас-медіа, галузевих об'єднань, що опікуються медійною тематикою, журналістів, юристів та інших.

Експертне обговорення відбудеться 1 березня 2012 року за адресою м. Київ, вул. Хрещатик, 14, готель «Хрещатик», конференц-зал «Володимирський». Час роботи - з 10-00 до 13-00. Вітальна кава і реєстрація - з 9-30.

Якщо ви зацікавлені в участі у заході, просимо зареєструватися за адресою event@medialaw.kiev.ua або за телефоном (044) 284-6164.

Захід проводиться за підтримки американського народу, що була надана через Агентство США з міжнародного розвитку (USAID) та Інтерньюз Нетворк, а також за підтримки міжнародної організації «Міжнародна Підтримка Медіа».

пятница, 24 февраля 2012 г.

Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Monday Note

Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Monday Note
In the summer of 2009, I found myself invited to a small party in an old bourgeois apartment with breathtaking views of the Champ-de-Mars and Eiffel Tower. The gathering was meant to be an informal discussion among media people about Nicolas Sarkozy’s push for the HADOPI anti-piracy bill. The risk of a heated debate was very limited: everyone in this little crowd of artists, TV and movie producers, and journalists, was on the same side, that is against the proposed law. HADOPI was the same breed as the now comatose American PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). The French law was based on a three-strikes-and-you-are-disconnected system, aimed at the most compulsive downloaders.
The discussion started with a little tour de table, in which everyone had to explain his/her view of the law. I used the standard Alcoholic Anonymous introduction: “I’m Frederic, and I’ve been downloading for several years. I started with the seven seasons of The West Wing, and I keep downloading at a sustained rate. Worse, my kids inherited my reprehensible habit and I failed to curb their bad behavior. Even worse, I harbor no intent to give up since I refuse to wait until next year to see a dubbed version of Damages on a French TV network… In can’t stand Glenn Close speaking French, you see…” It turned out that everybody admitted to copious downloading, making this little sample of the anti-Sarkozy media elite a potential target for HADOPI enforcers. (Since then, parliamentary filibuster managed to emasculate the bill.)
When it come to digital piracy, there is a great deal of hypocrisy. One way another, everyone is involved.
For some large players — allegedly on the plaintiff side — the sinning even takes industrial proportions. Take the music industry.
In October 2003, Wired ran this interesting piece about a company specialized in tracking entertainment contents over the internet. BigChampagne, located in Beverly Hills, is for the digital era what Billboard magazine was in the analog world. Except that BigChampagne is essentially tracking illegal contents that circulates on the web. It does so with incredible precision by matching IP numbers and zip code, finding out what’s hot on peer-to-peer networks. In his Wired piece, Jeff Howe explains:
BigChampagne’s clients can pull up information about popularity and market share (what percentage of file-sharers have a given song). They can also drill down into specific markets – to see, for example, that 38.35 percent of file-sharers in Omaha, Nebraska, have a song from the new 50 Cent album.
No wonder some clients pay BigChampagne up to 40,000$ a month for such data. They use BigChampagne’s valuable intelligence to apply gentle pressure on local radio station to air the very tunes favored by downloaders. For a long time, illegal file-sharing has been a powerful market and promotional tool for the music industry.
For the software industry, tolerance of pirated contents has been part of the ecosystem for quite a while as well. Many of us recall relying on pirated versions of Photoshop, Illustrator or Quark Xpress to learn how to use those products. It is widely assumed that Adobe and Quark have floated new releases of their products to spread the word-of-mouth among creative users. And it worked fine. (Now, everyone relies on a much more efficient and controlled mechanism of test versions, free trials, video tutorials, etc.)
There is no doubt, though, that piracy is inflicting a great deal of harm on the software industry. Take Microsoft and the Chinese market. For the Seattle firm, the US and the Chinese markets are roughly of the same size: 75 million PC shipments in the US for 2010, 68 million in China. There, 78% of PC software is pirated, vs. 20% in the US; as a result, Microsoft makes the same revenue from the Chinese than from… the Netherlands.
More broadly, how large is piracy today? At the last Consumer Electronic Show, the British market intelligence firm Envisional Ltd. presented its remarkable State of Digital Piracy Study (PDF here). Here are some highlights:
- Pirated contents accounts for 24% of the worldwide internet bandwidth consumption.
- The biggest chunk is carried by BitTorrent (the protocol used for file sharing); it weighs about 40% of the illegitimate content in Europe and 20% in the US (including downstream and upstream). Worldwide, BitTorrent gets 250 million UVs per month.
- The second tier is made by the so-called cyberlockers (5% of the global bandwidth), among them the infamous MegaUpload, raided a few days ago by the FBI and the New Zealand police. On the 500 million uniques visitors per month to cyberlockers, MegaUpload drained 93 million UVs. (To put things in perspective, the entire US newspaper industry gets about 110 million UVs per month). The Cyberlockers segment has twice the users but consumes eight times less bandwidth than BitTorrent simply because files are much bigger on the peer-to-peer system.
- The third significant segment in piracy is illegal video streaming (1.4% of the global bandwidth.)
There are three ways to fight piracy: endless legal actions, legally blocking access, or creating alternative legit offers.
The sue-them-untill-they-die approach is mostly a US-centric one. It will never yield great results (aside from huge legal fees) due to the decentralized nature of the internet (there is no central servers for BitTorrent) and to the tolerance in countries in harboring cyberlockers.
As for law-based enforcement systems such has the French HADOPI or American SOPA/PIPA, they don’t work either. HADOPI proved to be porous as chalk, and the US lawmakers had to yield to the public outcry. Both bills were poorly designed and inefficient.
The figures compiled by Envisional Ltd. are indeed a plea for the third approach, that is the creation of legitimate offers.
Take a look at the figures below, which shows the peak bandwidth distribution between the US and Europe. You will notice that the paid-for Netflix service takes exactly the same amount of traffic as BitTorrent does in Europe!
US Bandwidth Consumption:

Europe Bandwidth Consumption:

Source : Envisional Ltd
These stats offer a compelling proof that creating legitimate commercial alternatives is a good way to contain piracy. The conclusion is hardly news. The choice between pirated and legit content is a combination of ease-of-use, pricing and availability on a given market. For contents such as music, TV series or movies, services like Netflix, iTunes or even BBC iPlayer go in the right direction. But one key obstacle remains: the balkanized internet (see a previous Monday Note Balkanizing the Web), i.e. the country zoning system. By slicing the global audience in regional markets, both the industry (Apple for instance) and the local governments neglect a key fact: today’s digital audience is getting increasingly multilingual or at least more eager to consume contents in English as they are released. Today we have entertainment products, carefully designed to fit a global audience, waiting months before becoming available on the global market. As long as this absurdity remains, piracy will flourish. As for the price, it has to match the ARPU generated by an advertising-supported broadcast. For that matter, I doubt a TV viewer of the Breaking Bad series comes close to yield an advertising revenue that matches the $34.99 Apple is asking for the purchase of the entire season IV. Maintaining such gap also fuels piracy.
I want Netflix, BBC iPlayer and an unlocked and cheaper iTunes everywhere, now. Please. In the meantime, I keep my Vuze BitTorrent downloader on my computer. Just in case.
—frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com

Tanja Aitamurto: My Dad, SOPA and Me

In our family we have two takes on copyright issues and SOPA. These two approaches reflect the gap between digital and offline worlds.

Let's look at my case first. I'm a researcher, journalist and author, and I strongly support copyright. However, I would never apply the old-fashioned copyright to this post, because this text doesn't have creative value. It will be read only once, and it is like milk and bread: a commodity. Therefore, there's no sense to protect the post with copyright. Instead, it is more worthwhile to expand the audience footprint by encouraging readers to republish the post. That spreads the word about my work, and keeps a constant flow of new, relevant people contacting me for collaboration.

Therefore, whenever I have the say, I apply Creative Commons license in my posts, just like news outlet Al Jazeera did during the Arab Spring. Al Jazeera perceived that there's more value for them to spread the news content online with an open license, with Al Jazeera's logo on it, rather than just publishing the news content on their websites.

My Dad is a photographer who has documented the life of the indigenous Sami people in Finland since the 1960s. If my Dad's pictures weren't protected by copyright, the value of his work would diminish. If his photos were used without permission, he would sue the illegal publisher. Copyright protects.

In science, the author typically owns the copyright for the work. Citations are the currency of science; however, academic publications are locked into databases, which typically are closed from the public. By paying high fees one gets access. Therefore, smart scholars such as Eric von Hippel, have made their work accessible online for free. When the copy is available for free, there will be more citations.

The SOPA debate is not about unraveling the traditional copyright. Nobody is taking away the authors' and photographers' copyrights. Instead, the battle is about whose responsibility it is to monitor the copyright violations on the Web, and how this monitoring is being realized.

In the SOPA debate, and a similar debate in the European Union with the ACTA agreement, societies are attempting to identify how the offline-world's copyright fits into the digital world. Hollywood's music and movie business allied with traditional media companies want to push forward a law which fits to the offline world. The opposing forces, including tech giants like Google, want to have a law that follow the principles on the Web --and they want to define those principles.

For those who support applying offline world's rules online, I recommend checking out a pie chart presented by a French colleague Frédéric Filloux. The chart tells what sort of content moves online. The online movie store Netflix takes as much bandwidth in the United States as BitTorrent takes in Europe. Thus, legal content sales are possible.

But only when the transactions are made easy enough! An opposite experience to Netflix in user-friendliness is a situation experienced by my friend. He heard about a good documentary called Miss Representation, and he wanted to watch it with his girlfriend in the evening. He assumed he can buy the film online, but it turns out that the film is showed only in private screenings, typically at schools. There wasn't any private screenings available in his area, so the only way to watch the film legally would have required him to request for a screening right, and pay for the right. My friend used BitTorrent instead.

He obviously did a wrong thing by violating the copyright. However, this is a good example of applying the offline world model to the Web. Miss Representation movie producers lose money because of this. There are less people who will pay to organize a screening event, than people who would buy the film online to see it on their own laptop whenever they want to. Ironically enough, Miss Representation wants to become a viral phenomenon on the Web.

How about individual creative workers, like me and my Dad, who leads the frontier for us in SOPA? I would say: Nobody does.

The worker unions don't have much voice in the battle of tech and media giants here in the United States. And these giants don't care what happens to our pictures and posts. Publishers want to take copyrights from the creative workers -- for free -- and make money on the content. Most of them have failed in the monetization part, as their legacy business models don't work on the Web. The tech giants, such as Google, want to index all the information in the world -- including my posts and my dad's pictures -- distribute and sell it.

Because we are left alone in this battle, my Dad and I have to discover for ourselves which business logic and distribution model serves our purposes online. In an ideal case, legislation would support our goals as well, not only the big players'. As a citizen I would hope so, but I suppose I'm being utopian.

Follow Tanja Aitamurto on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TanjaAita

«Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики»

«Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики»
Першого березня 2012 року Інститут Медіа Права проведе експертний семінар на тему «Відповідальність за поширення інформації в інтернеті: сучасні виклики». Семінар буде присвячений актуальним питанням регулювання роботи веб-сайтів та діяльності провайдерів в Україні.

Протягом заходу будуть презентовані та обговорені такі питання:

• існуючі законопроекти, які обмежують свободу слова в інтернеті;

Захід розрахований на представників мас-медіа, галузевих об'єднань, що опікуються медійною тематикою, журналістів, юристів та інших.

Експертне обговорення відбудеться 1 березня 2012 року за адресою м. Київ, вул. Хрещатик, 14, готель «Хрещатик», конференц-зал «Володимирський». Час роботи - з 10-00 до 13-00. Вітальна кава і реєстрація - з 9-30.

Якщо ви зацікавлені в участі у заході, просимо зареєструватися за адресою event@medialaw.kiev.uaабо за телефоном (044) 284-6164.

Захід проводиться за підтримки американського народу, що була надана через Агентство США з міжнародного розвитку (USAID) та Інтерньюз Нетворк, а також за підтримки міжнародної організації «Міжнародна Підтримка Медіа».

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З найкращими побажаннями,
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+38 (068) 340 03 33

Віддай людині крихітку себе,
За це душа поповнюється світлом.
(Л. Костенко)

Commission asks ECJ to rule on ACTA compatibility

“The European Commission is to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule whether a controversial international anti-piracy agreement is compatible with ‘fundamental EU rights and freedoms’.”

четверг, 23 февраля 2012 г.

CyberLaw Blog

Courts cannot force social networks to broadly monitor for illegal file-sharing, ECJ rules
British Facebook hacker sentenced to eight months in jail
High Court rules The Pirate Bay operators and users guilty of copyright infringement

Courts cannot force social networks to broadly monitor for illegal file-sharing, ECJ rules

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 02:16 AM PST

Courts cannot force social networks to broadly monitor for illegal file-sharing, ECJ rules: “National courts cannot force social networks to monitor for copyright infringement by users because it would not strike a ‘fair balance’ between the rights of rights holders and the rights of those platforms and its users, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

British Facebook hacker sentenced to eight months in jail

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 02:15 AM PST

British Facebook hacker sentenced to eight months in jail: “A man who hacked into Facebook and claimed he wanted to help the company expose vulnerabilities to its system has been sentenced to an eight month jail term.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

High Court rules The Pirate Bay operators and users guilty of copyright infringement

Posted: 22 Feb 2012 02:13 AM PST

High Court rules The Pirate Bay operators and users guilty of copyright infringement: “The operators of The Pirate Bay (TPB) website and its users are both guilty of infringing the copyright of rights holders in the music industry, the UK High Court has ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

среда, 22 февраля 2012 г.

Robert McDowell: The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom - WSJ.com

By ROBERT M. MCDOWELL

On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.

If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet's flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.

Since the Net's inception, engineers, academics, user groups and others have convened in bottom-up nongovernmental organizations to keep it operating and thriving through what is known as a "multi-stakeholder" governance model. This consensus-driven private-sector approach has been the key to the Net's phenomenal success.

In 1995, shortly after it was privatized, only 16 million people used the Internet world-wide. By 2011, more than two billion were online—and that number is growing by as much as half a million every day. This explosive growth is the direct result of governments generally keeping their hands off the Internet sphere.

Net access, especially through mobile devices, is improving the human condition more quickly—and more fundamentally—than any other technology in history. Nowhere is this more true than in the developing world, where unfettered Internet technologies are expanding economies and raising living standards.

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Corbis

Farmers who live far from markets are now able to find buyers for their crops through their Internet-connected mobile devices without assuming the risks and expenses of traveling with their goods. Worried parents are able to go online to locate medicine for their sick children. And proponents of political freedom are better able to share information and organize support to break down the walls of tyranny.

The Internet has also been a net job creator. A recent McKinsey study found that for every job disrupted by Internet connectivity, 2.6 new jobs are created. It is no coincidence that these wonderful developments blossomed as the Internet migrated further away from government control.

Today, however, Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;

• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;

• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."

• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;

• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;

• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Many countries in the developing world, including India and Brazil, are particularly intrigued by these ideas. Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control.

And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity. They have formed impressive coalitions, and their efforts have progressed significantly.

Merely saying "no" to any changes to the current structure of Internet governance is likely to be a losing proposition. A more successful strategy would be for proponents of Internet freedom and prosperity within every nation to encourage a dialogue among all interested parties, including governments and the ITU, to broaden the multi-stakeholder umbrella with the goal of reaching consensus to address reasonable concerns. As part of this conversation, we should underscore the tremendous benefits that the Internet has yielded for the developing world through the multi-stakeholder model.

Upending this model with a new regulatory treaty is likely to partition the Internet as some countries would inevitably choose to opt out. A balkanized Internet would be devastating to global free trade and national sovereignty. It would impair Internet growth most severely in the developing world but also globally as technologists are forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and invest. This would also undermine the proliferation of new cross-border technologies, such as cloud computing.

A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

Pro-regulation forces are, thus far, much more energized and organized than those who favor the multi-stakeholder approach. Regulation proponents only need to secure a simple majority of the 193 member states to codify their radical and counterproductive agenda. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country can wield a veto in ITU proceedings. With this in mind, some estimate that approximately 90 countries could be supporting intergovernmental Net regulation—a mere seven short of a majority.

While precious time ticks away, the U.S. has not named a leader for the treaty negotiation. We must awake from our slumber and engage before it is too late. Not only do these developments have the potential to affect the daily lives of all Americans, they also threaten freedom and prosperity across the globe.

Mr. McDowell is a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

суббота, 18 февраля 2012 г.

CWG-WCIT12 CONTRIBUTION: February 2012 Internet Society comment to the WCIT Preparations | Internet Society

Internet Society comment to the WCIT Preparations- February 2012.pdf

четверг, 16 февраля 2012 г.