The Future of the Internet: A Political View
- Jun 24, 2008 1:13 PM PST
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On June 17th and 18th the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) hosted a Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy, attended by Ministers for communications from the 30 OECD member nations and some 15 other nations, all to talk about the future of the Internet Economy.
This was not the only dedicated Internet gathering on the 2008 calendar for governmental delegations, which includes the normal load of two meetings of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) a year as well as three ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) meetings. The track record of the lasting value of such meetings does not appear to be overly impressive, and it appears to be difficult to make the claim that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the subsequent set of IGF meetings have actually achieved anything at all. In fairness to the IGF, however, achievement of particular outcomes was never a part of the IGF agenda, and in providing a venue for this multi-stakeholder discussion the it is often claimed that the IGF has kept the worst excesses of the political wolves at bay. Without these forums for inter-governmental dialogue and forums for engagement between governments and other organized sectors of common interest it is often asserted that all could've turned out so much worse in terms of politically inspired governmental meddling with the Internet. But lets face it, gathering a collection of ministerial delegations to laboriously recite prepared speeches to each other sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry. And observing meetings where the major outcome appears to be limited to the scheduling of the next meeting can become somewhat tedious after a while. It should not be surprising that the level of expectation of tangible outcomes for such governmental meetings is invariably abysmally low.
So what's the value of adding yet another meeting to governments' schedule? What makes this OECD-hosted meeting so unique in the context of the Internet's current political landscape and its political future? Why would a meeting about the dismal science of economics hold any interest at all? (...)
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