Governments shouldn’t have a monopoly on Internet governance

Before we get all up in arms about governments taking monopoly, we should remind ourselves that the "bottom up" approach being championed here gave us the Google-Verizon open internet proposal in August. As I understand it, the proposal have implied net neutrality for wireline services but has an opt-out for wireless internet. So the bottom up approach is not a guarantee that it will produce better policies.<p>But on balance, the bottom up approach has certainly been good for the internet. I just want to keep it in perspective.<p>References for the Google-Verizon deal:<p><a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy-proposal-for-open-internet.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy-...</a><p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10920871" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10920871</a>

I disagree. Google is completely wrong and self-serving here. Even evil.<p>It is important for people to realize the idea of "conservation of government". There are many areas of life that will be governed by rules, like it or not. If government does it, they will be rules set by government, and therefore having some accountability to the people, in democratic societies.<p>If government declines to be the rule-setter, private industry usually takes up the slack. Their rules have no accountability to individuals. But either way, the amount of government is conserved, only the basis for it and accountability of it change.<p>If the U.S. decided to abolish the FDA, for example, there would still be rules governing food quality in the United States. They would be rules set by consortiums of grocery store chains and meat packers and the like. "Walmart will buy meat only of this quality and no worse", whatever that quality level might be. The food protection rules didn't disappear, they just became divorced from accountability to the public.<p>Libertarians (Vint Cerf certainly is one, and corporations generally are as well) pronounce that shifting governance from government to corporations is good. Certainly it is in the corporate interest. As for good, any given shift could be good (in the sense that you could have a benevolent dictator, for a time), but in the aggregate, divorcing accountability from governance certainly results in worse governance (the average dictator is worse than the average elected representative).<p>The unelected, unaccountable, responsive-only-to-money Chamber of Commerce is not in fact the right entity to be deciding internet governance issues. Elected governments are.

Wikileaks highlights how governments' interest can differ from the "citizens of the Internet" (for lack of a better term). Of course governments do act as an important counterweight to keep corporations from abusing their monopolies on internet governments ....<p>From a governance perspective, who speaks for "Google users"?

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I'd rather governments have control here. At least I have a vote and rights in my government. I'm not a Google shareholder so Google, not so much.

The <i>inter-networks</i> are too important to be governed by anyone, be they governments or companies. Government implies coercion and regulations, regardless of where it comes from.<p>Not that the regulators won't try, they will be adamant about their "right" to "bring order" over apparent chaos.

Say what you want about Google but at least they have fight in them and don't roll over at the onset.

The very premise of this article is totally ridiculous.<p>The beauty of the internet is that you can easily share vast amounts of digitized information with anyone without having to be in the same place.<p>Not that it's governed by X or Y. And the IGF doesn't govern it anyway.<p>In the end this forum is a total joke anyway, a pointless waste of money, much like many parts of the UN from which it stems. Any actual decisions are made elsewhere.<p>And even if it did matter why should we support a bunch of companies and academics taking part in this sort of thing? Who elected them? What if it were Zynga sitting on this committee instead of Google? Would anyone be outraged at their departure?

"Governments shouldn't have a monopoly on governance."<p>Isn't governance what governments are for? Granted, governments are dysfunctional in many ways, but suggesting governments let others govern seems a bit silly. Who else is going to govern? Should we let corporations sit on committees, next to officials, forgetting that officials were elected, and corporations were not?<p>There is no guarantee that companies are going to take care of our interests better than governments do. And let's not forget that governments are dysfunctional largely because of the influence that corporations themselves already exert on them.

I've said it before...I'm fairly confident the government will subsidize a nation-wide 5th generation wireless technology for free internet for all. It'll likely be restricted to just 80/8080 traffic, be throttled, and of course governed and monitored by the government. Since it's completely voluntary to use this network, it breaks no laws since by using it, you will grant them permission to snoop if they so choose.<p>Call me crazy, but I think it's inevitable...likely to go down 10-15 years from now.<p>Just one man's opinion though, that's all.

Already posted using a direct link to ISOC story <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2016379" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2016379</a>

"bottoms-up" is mentioned twice. Spellchecker?

Neither are big corporations, like Google.

Translated from corporate speak: "Entities voted for by the people, and representing the people's interests shouldn't have a monopoly on Internet governance. I.e, the people, shouldn't have a monopoly on Internet governance".<p>Now, you could argue that the some/all governments represent the people badly. But this is an argument/call to arms to demand BETTER representation, not for giving up control to other, opaque, entities.