Internet Policy Snapshot

By Michael R. Nelson
mrn@us.ibm.com

This special issue of On The Internet is designed to help you better understand many of the policy issues that need to be addressed if the Internet is to realize its full potential. We have assembled articles by top experts on Internet policy who are deeply involved in Internet policy debates currently under way.

When I was asked to edit this special issue on Internet policy, I knew it would be a difficult task-for at least three reasons. First, there are so many hot Internet policy issues; how could I pick six to eight of those on which to focus? Second, things are changing so quickly; how could I be sure that what we published was current? And third, I wanted to recruit the best possible people to write articles, and the best people also tend to be the busiest. Despite these challenges, I believe you will find this a very useful and stimulating issue, thanks to the hard work of the authors and of the production team at the Rickard Group.

We have provided a snapshot of Internet policy development in the middle of the year 2000. It is a complicated picture indeed.

For most sectors of the economy, policy is set by governments working through well-established organizations following time-tested procedures and processes. That's not the case with the Internet. The Internet is too new and too global. Applications like the Web, streaming video, and e-commerce were unknown 10 years ago. Everything is moving on Internet time. Amazon.com has transformed bookselling in the U.S. Start-ups like MP3.com and Napster have exploded onto the scene and could fundamentally change music distribution in just a couple of years.

The Internet has gone from a tool used by a few million researchers-primarily in the United States-to a powerful platform for commerce worldwide. It has become a mass medium used by more than 200 million people worldwide. Along the way, a number of policy problems have developed, ranging from online privacy to cybersecurity, Internet pornography, and online piracy of copyrighted material. These are new issues and will require new mechanisms and new institutions to address them.

Internet users, industry leaders, and interest groups are demanding answers to these problems, and governments are listening. As result, hundreds of pieces of legislation have been introduced. White papers and proposals are being released every week. And there are more and more reports in the news media about the latest government initiatives.

Yet, in many cases, Internet policy will be set not by national governments but by the global Internet community. That is what makes Internet policy so complicated, so confusing, and so exciting. Governments are realizing that the Internet is a global medium and that national laws and regulations will be difficult or impossible to apply. Furthermore, it is clear that the Internet has grown so rapidly in part because it has not been encumbered by regulation. As governments compete to become leaders in the Internet economy, they are wary of inadvertently imposing regulations and requirements that would hinder investment and growth.

As a result, many governments are turning to the private sector for help. Not only are they asking for advice; in many cases, they are challenging the private sector to find nongovernmental, nonregulatory solutions to Internet policy problems. One example of this is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an international nonprofit organization created in 1998 to oversee allocation of Internet domain names and Internet protocol (IP) numbers. ICANN was created when the U.S. government decided it no longer made sense to oversee allocation of domain names and IP addresses itself for an increasingly global medium. Rather than asking an intergovernmental organization to assume the responsibility, the U.S. government challenged the private sector to take on this role, and ICANN, a nongovernmental entity, was created.

In more and more cases, the private sector-composed of companies, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals-is leading the way in addressing Internet policy issues. The Internet itself, by facilitating information sharing and consensus building, is helping make this possible.

Since I joined IBM two years ago, I've been very involved with the Global Internet Project (GIP). This group of Internet industry leaders was founded in 1996 by Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape, in order to jump-start private-sector initiatives for addressing Internet policy issues and to help governments better understand the Internet. The GIP has issued numerous policy primers and provided critically needed financial support for ICANN when ICANN was first getting organized. Vint Cerf, former chairman of the board of the Internet Society, is one of the most active members of the GIP and has helped foster cooperation between it and the Internet Society.

A May 1998 report from the GIP defined an "Internet policy architecture" that outlined six key areas of Internet policy (Figure 1). The six components of the GIP policy architecture are:

1. Infrastructure-How can we ensure that the Internet is affordable, reliable, and available for people around the world?
2. Governance-How can we ensure that the Internet works properly? How will Internet standards be set? How will domain names and IP addresses be allocated?
3. Security-How can we protect the data and systems on the Internet from malicious hackers, computer viruses, and other threats?
4. Privacy-What can be done to protect the privacy of Internet users?
5. Content-How can we protect children and others from pornographic, violent, and offensive material on the Internet? What is needed to protect intellectual property made available over the Internet?
6. Commerce-How will contracts be made and enforced in cyberspace? How will consumer protection laws apply to online transactions? How will governments tax e-commerce?

Each of these issues depends upon the preceding one, and each one must be addressed if we are to enjoy the full benefits of the Internet revolution. This special issue provides background on the most controversial and difficult policy issues that face the Internet. We have not tried to cover every issue but instead have focused on the ones that are at the top of the agenda today and are most likely to be debated and resolved in the next year or two. It is clear that it will be some time before all of the issues discussed here are addressed. It is also clear that the rapid growth of the Internet and continued technological innovation will ensure a steady stream of new, thorny policy challenges.

Many of the contributors to this special issue were asked to write short issue briefs on particular Internet policy topics. Anyone who has been involved in policy making knows that good policy cannot be made if policy makers don't fully understand the issues and the parties involved. A good issue brief can't ensure that good policy will result, but lack of a good issue brief will make it much less likely.

The author of each issue brief was asked to answer each of the following questions:

1. The issues-What are the key policy issues to be addressed?
2. The players-Who are the different parties and what are their positions?
3. The forums-In which forums are these issues being addressed and when? In other words, what are governments and international organizations doing to try to address the problem?
4. The prospects-How likely are the key issues to be resolved soon?
5. What the private sector is doing-What can industry do to address the problem?
6. What you can do-What can individual Internet users do to shape Internet policy in this area?
7. For more information-Where to go for additional details?
8. About the author-Who is the author, and what are the author's biases?

The authors were asked to answer these questions concisely and with a minimum of jargon or legalese. As a result, it was not possible to delve into all of the intricacies of each policy issue; instead, each author provided a tour of the horizon for each issue.

Sam Paltridge, an analyst at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, has provided the latest data on the cost of local Internet access in more than 20 countries and examined what is being done to bridge the digital divide. Jane van Beelen and John Rolland of Telstra have provided a clear, concise summary of the complicated debate currently under way about whether international Internet connection pricing is fair and competitive.

Izumi Aizu, who has played a key role in Internet policy debates in Asia, discusses how Internet governance is evolving and provides an invaluable inventory of the key organizations involved.

Roger Cochetti,who has been deeply involved in the debate over Internet domain names-first at IBM and now as a senior executive at Network Solutions-provides a list of the issues and players in that arena.

Dorothy Denning, a well-respected cryptographer and a key player in the debates over the Clipper Chip and key-escrow encryption in the United States, has provided an excellent overview of cybersecurity issues.

Harriet Pearson of IBM, who has been instrumental in formation of the Online Privacy Alliance, has framed the ongoing debate over Internet privacy and described the industry-led efforts to give Internet users the tools they need to ensure the privacy of their personal information.

John Perry Barlow, who has been called the "Thomas Paine of cyberspace" and who was cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the leading organizations fighting for freedom of speech in cyberspace, has contributed his assessment of efforts to censor or control content online.
In addition to the issue briefs, a number of authors contributed essays on different aspects of Internet policy:

David W. Maher, the Internet Society's vice president for public policy, summarizes the Internet Society's efforts to shape Internet policy and lists the policy issues that are at the top of ISOC's agenda.

Charles Brownstein, who has been helping shape the Internet and Internet policy for more than 15 years, has contributed an essay with advice to policy makers on what they should and should not do to foster the growth of the Internet and e-commerce.

Susan P. Crawford and David R. Johnson, lawyers at Wilmer and Cutler, a leading Washington, D.C., law firm, have written an essay describing the thorny jurisdictional problems that arise when national governments try to impose conflicting consumer protection laws on e-commerce.

Carol Anne Been and David W. Maher, lawyers at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, summarize the difficult copyright issues that pertain to Internet domain names. Madanmohan Rao of PlanetAsia in India and a frequent contributor to OnTheInternet describes the many challenges that must be overcome to ensure that people worldwide have affordable access to the Internet.

The next few years will be critical ones for the Internet. As the Internet becomes a mass medium, governments will feel increasingly compelled to make policy and to influence the way it is designed, built, and used. At the same time, leaders of the Internet industry, individual Internet users, and organizations like the Internet Society are working to address the growing concerns of governments so that the Internet will not be stymied by unnecessary or poorly designed rules and regulations. It is our hope that this special issue will help inform OTI readers and spur them to get more involved in the debate over Internet policy. More people involved in the debate means more different perspectives and, hopefully, more new, innovative solutions to the policy problems we face.