[At-Large] (No so) Serious Allegations

[Patrick Vande Walle]

Ross Rader wrote, On 27/11/08 16:53:
> On Nov 27, 2008, at 10:33 AM, Patrick Vande Walle wrote:
>
>> things governments
>> are actually useful for
>
> In each case, I think the internet ends up in a better place if the
> solutions come from the users. Using governments as a proxy for strong
> policy internationalizes the internet. It is inherently global, and we
> lose if it de-aggregates in this way.
Ross,

Certainly, the solutions would be better if they came from the users.
However, after more than 10 years of an Internet managed by the private
sector, the results in terms of self regulation have been less than
impressive.

As a taxpayer,  I expect my government to invest as much time and
resources on the Internet industry that it does on steel, finance or
agriculture and even more so when the players cannot agree on fair rules.

One would have hoped for example that the domain name industry and its
customers could agree on common standards regarding contracts, privacy,
etc and see them deployed and enforced in an identical way in Europe,
North America and elsewhere around the globe. The fact remains today
that the customer is basically powerless in case of an issue with a
registrar or registry located in another country.

Until the industry matures, some government presence may be beneficial.
The hands off ideology has shown its limits in the financial sector,
which is also global in essence. We may not want to reproduce the same
mistakes with the Internet sector, as it is now vital  to the
functioning of the global economy.

Patrick