[IRP] WE NEED YOU - crucial phase of drafting Charter of Human Rights and Principles on the Internet

[Max Senges]

Hi Lee welcome to the discussion

>
> If I may try to gently wade into this discussion: I agree with Ian that
> talking a lot about a 'right' to network neutrality is a mistake best
> avoided.
>
> One of the key mistakes we agreed to avoid is to call anything but Human
Rights rights - so there is no right to net neutrality in the text. Only a
principles that creates the condition for us to enjoy our rights online.

Best
Max





> However, the 'principle' of network neutrality is already enshrined in
> various docs, even if folks like Ian and I have been warning that any use of
> the the phrase is problematic, since it is a quagmire of ambiguity.
>
> However, if folks see a need to endorse the principle I can say that likely
> won't make things much worse.
>
> The Google lobbyists who popularized the term must now be squirming, as
> AT&T scores political points of its own, having sued Google last week for
> alleged violations of network neutrality.
>
> Anyway, my advice is be very very careful with those 2 words.
>
> On the other hand, a wholesale endorsement of a right to an open Internet,
> as well as open Internet access, are defensible logically and politically;
> in my opinion. Even if they have their own ambiguities.
>
> Lee
> ________________________________________
> From: irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org [
> irp-bounces at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org] On Behalf Of Max Senges
> [maxsenges at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 11:13 AM
> To: Ian Peter; irp; Internet Rights Discussion Group
> Subject: Re: [IRP] WE NEED YOU - crucial phase of drafting Charter of Human
>     Rights and Principles on the Internet
>
> Hi folks
>
> Ian (who co-moderates the Internet Governance Caucus aka the mother of all
> IG mailing lists) makes some interesting points below. I have commented
> inline.
>
> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 3:21 AM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com<mailto:
> ian.peter at ianpeter.com>> wrote:
> Hi Max, nice to hear from you. A couple of things come to mind from you
> writing.
>
> Firstly, we have chosen speakers for Sharm main sessions who will be
> willing to advance the rights issue. It will be good to strategise what else
> we might be able to do to advance the cause during the meeting.
>
>
> One thing that comes to mind is that I am talking to avaaz.org<
> http://avaaz.org> I would like to run some sort of campaign and come with
> a long list of people who expressed that they care and are worried about
> their Human Rights on the internet.
>
> Secondly, what else can we do during Sharm? I think we need to make our
> presence felt on this issue.
>
> Anyway, to the text ? I?ll have a look later and make more comments but the
> first thing that hit me was the use of both net neutrality and end to end
> principles. I think we have to be very careful here.
>
> Both end to end and net neutrality are retrofitted concepts that some
> people continue to defend but neither of which applies to the internet as
> is. I think we are better off dropping both phrases as both are contentious
> ? the internet is not end to end and never will be, and where net neutrality
> starts to imply no traffic shaping, we are getting into network management
> issues which we are best to avoid. The Norwegians have got it  right here ?
> I think we need to talk about the rights to access content and applications
> of choice, people understand that, and we avoid the technical debates and
> opposition. Similarly with end to end ? lets express what we are trying to
> achieve here and what the right is rather than imagining that somehow an
> internet without firewalls is suddenly going to happen or that?s the way it
> should be.  In other words, we have adopted catch phrases which don?t help
> our cause and create confusion ? lets get what we are trying to achieve here
> right!
>
> Interesting point. I don't consider myself a technology expert on the
> infrastructure level. But I did discuss net neutrality on a panel at EuroDIG
> and my position is: Yes of course we need traffic management. If there is
> too many people and the lines are cogested some stuff (esp. real time apps
> like voice, etc.) need to be prioritized. But there are two important
> aspects: A) It needs to be reasonable - as in I want to know what and why:
> "your skype video has been disabled. Please continue with voice only,
> because the XYZ backbone in Chile is overloaded"
> and B) the network must be open for innovation: As long as the data can be
> transported using standard infrastructure (protokols), the net
> infrastructure and the service providers should not have the possibility to
> build walled gardens and only allow selected services. (I thought we were
> about to overcome lock-in non-interoperable enviornments like compuserve and
> AOL)
>
> my2cent
> Max
>
> (Robert, happy for you to pass this on to the drafters ? I?ll try to get to
> log in in a few days, but if that doesn?t happen it would be good to have
> these thoughts considered).
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Ian Peter
>
>
>
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