Begin forwarded message:
From: Richard Hill via InternetPolicy <internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org> Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] [Chapter-delegates] What ISOC is doing Date: 13 July 2021 at 10:40:30 CEST To: "'Stephen Farrell'" <stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie>, <internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org> Reply-To: Richard Hill <rhill@hill-a.ch>
Please see embedded comments below.
Thanks and best, Richard
-----Original Message----- From: InternetPolicy [mailto:internetpolicy-bounces@elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Farrell via InternetPolicy Sent: Tuesday, 13 July 2021 03:50 To: internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] [Chapter-delegates] What ISOC is doing
SNIP
But maybe let's consider your earlier analogy: perhaps a "walled garden" is no longer an accurate enough descriptor - would it be more accurate (albeit perhaps far too emotive) to describe such deployments as "colonial powers"?
Yes, that's a fair analogy, but a better one is the classic abuse of dominant market power, as in the railroads in the US in the late 19th century, or in monopoly telecoms in the 1960's.
After all, once such a service gets big enough, it can end up exercising a lot of control over IXP, ISP and endpoint behaviours and similar, even if "colonisation" is not at all a goal of the relevant folks.
The reason that I keep referring to proposals presented in trade negotiations is that I (and many others) see those proposals as being intended to perpetuate the current "colonization" and cast it in stone in binding international treaties.
That's one of the things that keeps me awake at night.
SNIP
"Users" is a broad category and might not only be the "eyeballs" we often think of.
Indeed. I like how RFC8890 (section 2) tried to cover that.
Here is a bit from Section 3 of that RFC (citing 4.1 of RFC 3935):
| The Internet isn't value-neutral, and neither is the IETF. We | want the Internet to be useful for communities that share our | commitment to openness and fairness. We embrace technical | concepts such as decentralized control, edge-user empowerment and | sharing of resources, because those concepts resonate with the | core values of the IETF community. These concepts have little to | do with the technology that's possible, and much to do with the | technology that we choose to create.