Internet Governance and Regulation

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Session Date: April 20, 2009

Topic owners: Vera, Arjun

Concrete Question of the Week

With regard to both structure and content, what issues, if any, does the Internet raise at the national and international levels that may require regulation? What alternatives are there to such regulation?

Brief Overview

How should the Internet do what it does? And what is it that the Internet does? Who should be responsible for the Internet?

These are the questions behind the idea of "Internet governance," to which the different Internet stakeholders have conflicting answers - ranging from a strict regulatory scheme, like those applied to traditional communications media (like television and cell phones), to vehement opposition to any kind of formal control structures. Part of this disagreement stems from the Internet's technical nature. which suggests two ways of thinking about Internet governance: (1) control of the mechanisms comprising the technical structure and standards, and (2) regulating the substantive use of the Internet. (Under Yochai Benkler's framework, these would be the "physical infrastructure" and "logical" layers, and the "content" layer, respectively.) The Net's origins as a US Department of Defense-funded research network, and the continued heavy influence on its maintenance and development by US actors, meanwhile, have given rise to conflicting national and international dimensions to these questions. This topic seeks to explore through select case studies already encountered in class the issues of the Internet today, to provide a clearer picture of where Internet governance is headed in the near future, and to establish why (or even whether) it matters.

Throughout this course, we have encountered many "issues at the frontier." For some of these issues, regulation may be useful (e.g. the Future of Copyright), whereas for others, not as much (e.g. the Future of News). But there is no distinct line separating the two categories.

Several theories exist on how the Internet should be governed and regulated, if at all. Below are two examples of structures that exist today to regulate the Internet, and the relative zones they seek to regulate. Are these bodies the right way to go? Do they meet the needs of today?

Session Outline

The session will be designed to view the issues that we have previously considered in this class in the context of Internet regulation. The class will be divided into two parts.

First, we will have guest speaker Milton Mueller speak to the class on Internet regulation in general, discussing how he views its structure and implementation. After Prof. Mueller speaks, we will have Prof. Zittrain respond to his comments, offering his own viewpoint on how he envisions Internet regulation. We hope to spur a dialog between the two professors, as well as engaging the class.

For the second half, we will examine topics we have already discussed during the course of the term from the perspective of Internet regulation. Using what Profs Mueller and Zittrain outline, we hope that we can address various complications with each viewpoint as it applies to each issue.

  • Pre-class assignment: Each member of the class will be expected to submit questions based on Internet regulation on any of the topics already addressed in class for a topic that is not their own. They should submit at least 3 questions, on three different topics.
  • Class Discussion: We will use the topics that generate the most number of questions to stimulate the conversation. We hope that the leaders of the topic will respond to the questions presented and stimulate a discussion amongst the class.
  • Wrap Up: The class will conclude with a discussion of the issues from the larger perspective, discussing what the class thinks are the most pressing concerns and how they think we can address them.

Guests

Professor Mueller is a Professor and Director of Telecommunications Network Management Program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, where he teaches and does research on the political economy of communication and information.

Readings

Required Readings

In preparation for our class discussion with Prof. Milton Mueller and Prof. Zittrain, please do the following required readings:


Suggested Background and Readings

In addition, we've selected three current topics to provide some background on the types of issues that "Internet Governance" might touch on. Though not the only issues that Internet Governance applies to, they provide examples of how Internet Governance interacts with different organizations and institutions.

ICANN's top-level domain name ("TLD") expansion

Last summer, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to expand the possible top-level domain names (TLDs) such that individuals, businesses, governments, and other entities can register TLDs composed of any combination of letters in any script, so long as they can show a "business plan and technical capacity" to back up their desired domain. Most domains will end up going to the highest bidder in an auction process. Despite ICANN's expansion of TLDs, the Department of Commerce has reiterated that its management of changes to the authoritative root zone file (including its contracts with VeriSign and ICANN) will remain intact.

  • Should we be concerned about control of generic domains, like ".news" or ".shop," by a few wealthy individuals or groups?
  • Should we worry that ICANN is the sole body setting the standards for TLDs and resolving disputes?
  • Who should control the root zone file, and why?
Selected Readings (skim)
  • Prof. Mueller and JZ discussing ICANN and top-level domains (TLDs) on the Internet Governance Project blog:

The Internet Governance Forum

The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was set up during the first phase of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 in order "to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of the Internet by 2005." In its final report, the WGIG provided the following working definition of Internet governance:

Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.

Based on the report, the UN Secretary-General established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2006 with multiple stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, and civil society. The mandate of the IGF declares that the forum's purpose is to discuss Internet governance-related public policy issues and advise stakeholders on such issues, but it does not have any real decision-making authority. The IGF held its third meeting during Dec. 3-6, 2008 in Hyderabad, India, in which panels explored topics such as expanding Internet access to the next billion people, promoting cyber-security, and global arrangements for managing critical internet resources.

  • Should the IGF have direct decision-making authority? If so, what substantive areas should this authority cover, how far should it go, and should it be binding? If not, what good does the IGF really do?
  • Is global governance of Internet use a good idea in any respect? If so, is the IGF the best form of this governance?
Selected Readings (skim)

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

On April 1st, 2009, Senators John D. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe introduced legislation drafted (with White House input) that, among other things, creates a "cybersecurity czar" who would have the power to shut down private computer networks in the event of a cyberattack.

  • Is it a good idea for the US government to have such control over the private Internet?
Selected Readings (skim)

Session Recap

Prof. Mueller's Presentation

Prof. Zittrain's Presentation

Class Discussion

On the Presentations

Pre-submitted Questions

The class submitted questions on the topic of Internet regulation that related to topics we had already discussed in class. There were many interesting and thoughtful questions, however we did not have time to address them.

For a look at the questions submitted by the class, click here

Teacher's Guide

Evaluation of the Class

Question Submission

As outlined above, we asked the class to submit questions on topics we looked at through the term and issues they raise with regards to Internet regulation. This generated a healthy set of thoughtful and provoking questions.

One thing that was noticeable was that many students were interested in the issues of copyright, network neutrality, and how they are accomplished both nationally and internationally. It was interesting to see where the students' interests were.

Live Discussion

The interaction between Profs. Mueller and Zittrain was enlightening and stimulating. We allowed the discussion to go where it naturally went, not trying to control the discussion too much. This was successful in that it allowed the students and the presenters to speak on things they were interested in.

The fact that Prof. Mueller joined the class via video conference made having a more natural discussion difficult, however it still worked reasonably well.

We had planned to address some of the questions and topics generated by the class in their question submission. However, we decided to just let the conversation continue.

Though we couldn't address the questions submitted, the choice to allow the conversation to continue seemed like a good one. We felt that the students were engaged and did not need to be encouraged to discuss new topics or ideas. A drawback, though, was that obviously students were interested in the topic, and we did not have time to address their questions.

Use of Technology

Prior to class

We used the email list to elicit questions from our classmates to use to stimulate discussion. These questions were aggregated used a Google Form, which allowed for a quick and easy way for us to see what questions the class had.

This worked well in encouraging people to submit questions. It was a quick and easy way for the students to contribute. It also worked well from our end - we were able to keep our inboxes free from an influx of questions, and we could both sign up to have access to the questions online.

In class

For the in-class session, we chose not to allow any use of laptops. We found that during previous iterations, laptops tended to distract people from the main discussion. When we made this decision, no class had yet banned laptops. However, by the time our session occurred, several classes had used this strategy.

We also had Prof. Mueller join us via video conference. The technology worked well for our needs, and allowed Prof. Mueller to join in and contribute where he otherwise would not have been able to. One problem with video conferencing though, is that it makes it feel less like a group discussion and more like one side talking to just one other side.

Finally, the room we had for the video conference was not ideal. The room had a capacity of about 110-120 and our class had about 30 members. This made the room feel empty and consequently the class less engaged, despite the fact that many people were participating and contributing.

Suggestions for Future Iterations

We found that we had a lot to talk about, but too little time. A suggestion would be to pick one topic, and focus on that. In the class, we ended up mainly engaging in a theoretical discussion about how to regulate the Internet (if at all). This conversation was good, however we had planned to do more, and had asked the class to prepare much more than we had time to cover.

There are many interesting topics in this field, so picking one that a majority of people are interested in should be easy. A suggestion would be to solicit ideas from the class prior to the session to find a topic that people are knowledgeable and interested in, and to focus the class there.

Like many of the other sessions, having more than one day to discuss such a broad topic would be useful. The opportunity to let ideas rest and to approach the topic from a different direction on a new day should not be wasted. In the future, we suggest revisiting topics on different days, and trying to link them to other topics.


Old discussion here

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