The Internet society and its struggle for recognition and influence

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Foucault in Cyberspace: Surveillance, Sovereignty, and Hardwired Censors

This is an essay about law in cyberspace. I focus on three interdependent phenomena: a set of political and legal assumptions that I call the jurisprudence of digital libertarianism, a separate but related set of beliefs about the state\u27s supposed inability to regulate the Internet, and a preference for technological solutions to hard legal issues on-line. I make the familiar criticism that digital libertarianism is inadequate because of its blindness towards the effects of private power, and the less familiar claim that digital libertarianism is also surprisingly blind to the state\u27s own power in cyberspace. In fact, I argue that the conceptual structure and jurisprudential assumptions of digital libertarianism lead its practitioners to ignore the ways in which the state can often use privatized enforcement and state-backed technologies to evade some of the supposed practical (and constitutional) restraints on the exercise of legal power over the Net. Finally, I argue that technological solutions which provide the keys to the first two phenomena are neither as neutral nor as benign as they are currently perceived to be. Some of my illustrations will come from the current Administration proposals for Internet copyright regulation, others from the Communications Decency Act and the cryptography debate. In the process, I make opportunistic and unsystematic use of the late Michel Foucault\u27s work to criticise some the jurisprudential orthodoxy of the Net

ICANN—Now and Then: ICANN’s Reform and Its Problems

This paper sheds some light upon the major problem arising from the current normative infrastructure of the DNS and provides a possible solution to the current physical problem of the DNS. The paper\u27s main focus is the single-entity control of the A Root. The paper uses as a starting point the Blueprint prepared by the Committee on ICANN Evolution and Reform and raises the question: Has this reform done anything to resolve the single-entity control of the A Root? The paper argues that the reform has done nothing to solve the problem because the international privatization of the DNS merely substitutes the administration of the DNS function without making changes to the normative infrastructure of the DNS. In light of the above, the paper argues that there is a need to declare independence from a one-entity controlled DNS. The suggested approach is to share authority over the root by acknowledging that countries that are accountable to their populations are the authorities for their own ccTLDs. Once technical and political independence has been achieved, the technical and, to some degree, political management of the DNS should be exercised through an international body. In order to initiate a discussion for a truly international body this paper offers nine principles that a new international ccTLD cooperation organization should observe when working on its own creation

Veteran Educators\u27 Perceptions of the Internet\u27s Impact on Learning and Social Development

In a time where some 2.4 billion Internet users exist worldwide, children are increasingly impacted by the Internet\u27s influence, both directly and indirectly. With technology now playing a significant role in childhood learning and social development, many unforeseen shifts are occurring that will ultimately impact lifespan development. Although researchers have provided mixed results concerning the impact of the Internet on learning and social development, the body of evidence indicates that veteran K-8 educators who are comfortable and experienced with the Internet view it more favorably. This grounded theory study systematically generated the multisystem technological engagement theory (MSTET) to explain the impact of the Internet on childhood learning and social development. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 self-identified veteran K-8 educators. Analysis of the data was conducted using a 3-tiered method of coding that was verified through the process of triangulation and member-checking. Results of this study indicate that the veteran K-8 educators perceived the Internet\u27s impact as positive, given a specific set of conditions: experience and comfort with the Internet, collaboration with parents, a healthy balance between face-to-face and online social interactions, boundaries, and maximization of benefits from available information and resources. These findings may enhance social change initiatives by providing an evidence basis for both targeted instruction and school counseling practice that facilitates healthy K-8 learning and social development in the Internet Age

The Future of Internet Regulation

Policymakers are at a precipice with regard to Internet regulation. The Federal Communications Commission\u27s ( FCC ) self-styled adjudication of a complaint that Comcast violated the agency\u27s Internet policy principles (requiring reasonable network management, among other things) clarified that the era of the non-regulation of the Internet is over. Equally clear is that the agency has yet to develop a model of regulation for a new era. As explained in this Article, the old models of regulation - reliance on command-and-control regulation or market forces subject only to antitrust law - are doomed to fail in a dynamic environment where cooperation is necessary to promote effective competition and continued Internet connectivity. Thus, this Article calls for a new model of regulation built around the concept of co-regulation - a self-regulatory body subject to public agency oversight - as the best strategy for Internet regulation going forward. This Article outlines a three-part strategy for the FCC, or any other authorized agency, to oversee Internet connectivity disputes such as those involving network management practices by broadband providers or Internet backbone interconnection. First, it calls on the FCC to act as a norm entrepreneur, identifying areas where cooperation is essential and setting forth the broad terms that should govern that cooperation. Second, it explains how the FCC could use a model of co-regulation, with a private sector collaborative body operating under its oversight. Third, it recommends that the FCC should exercise ex post adjudicative authority (rather than ex ante rulemaking authority), in tandem with the role played by the private body, to address breakdowns in cooperation and any departures from announced norms. This model, while of particular relevance to the future of Internet regulation, can be applied more broadly, thereby meriting the attention of policymakers and scholars interested in the future of the administrative state

Privacy and Democracy in Cyberspace

In this Article, Professor Schwartz depicts the widespread, silent collection of personal information in cyberspace. At present, it is impossible to know the fate of the personal data that one generates online. Professor Schwartz argues that this state of affairs degrades the health of a deliberative democracy; it cloaks in dark uncertainty the transmutation of Internet activity into personal information that will follow one into other areas and discourage civic participation. This situation also will have a negative impact on individual self- determination by deterring individuals from engaging in the necessary thinking out loud and deliberation with others upon which choice- making depends. In place of the existing privacy horror show on the Internet, Professor Schwartz seeks to develop multidimensional rules that set out fair information practices for personal data in cyberspace. The necessary rules must establish four requirements: (1) defined obliga- tions that limit the use of personal data; (2) transparent processing systems; (3) limited procedural and substantive rights; and (4) external oversight. Neither the market nor industry self-regulation are likely, however, to put these four practices in place. Under current conditions, a failure exists in the \u27privacy market. Moreover, despite the Clinton Administration\u27s endorsement of industry self-regulation, this method is an unlikely candidate for success. Industry self-regulation of privacy is a negotiation about the rules of play for the use of personal data. In deciding on these rules, industry is likely to be most interested in protecting its stream of revenues. Therefore, it will benefit if it develops norms that preserve the current status quo of maximum information disclosure. This Article advocates a legislative enactment of the four fair information practices. This legal expression of privacy norms is the best first step in promoting democratic deliberation and individual self-determination in cyberspace. It will further the attainment of cyberspace\u27s potential as a new realm for collaboration in political and personal activities. Enactment of such a federal law would be a deci- sive move to shape technology so it will further-and not harm-demo- cratic self-governance

(at)america.jp: Identity, nationalism, and power on the Internet, 1969-2000

america.jp explores identity, nationalism, and power on the Internet between 1969 and 2000 through a cultural analysis of Internet code and the creative processes behind it. The dissertation opens with an examination of a real-time Internet Blues jam that linked Japanese and American musicians between Tokyo and Mississippi in 1999. The technological, cultural, and linguistic uncertainties that characterized the Internet jam, combined with the inventive reactions of the musicians who participated, help to introduce the fundamental conceptual question of the dissertation: is code a cultural product and if so can the Internet be considered a distinctly American technology?;A comparative study of the Internet\u27s origins in the United States and Japan finds that code is indeed a cultural entity but that it is a product not of one nation, but of many. A cultural critique of the Internet\u27s domain name conventions explores the heavily-gendered creation of code and the institutional power that supports it. An ethnography of the Internet\u27s managing organization, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), investigates conflicts and identity formation within and among nations at a time when new Internet technologies have blurred humans\u27 understanding of geographic boundaries. In the year 2000, an effort to prevent United States domination of ICANN produced unintended consequences: disputes about the definition of geographic regions and an eruption of anxiety, especially in China, that the Asian seat on the ICANN board would be dominated by Japan. These incidents indicate that the Internet simultaneously destabilizes identity and ossifies it. In this paradoxical situation, cultures and the people in them are forced to reconfigure the boundaries that circumscribe who they think they are

Application-Centered Internet Analysis

There is a now-standard debate about law and the Internet. One side asserts that the Internet is so new and different that it calls for new legal approaches, even its own sovereign law. The other side argues that, although it is a new technology, the Internet nonetheless presents familiar legal problems. It is a battle of analogies: One side refers to Cyberspace as a place, while the other essentially equates the Internet and the telephone. In my view, these two positions are both wrong and right: wrong in their characterization of the Internet as a whole, yet potentially right about particular ways of using the Internet. The real problem is that both sides (and indeed, most legal writing) rely on a singular model of the Internet. They take one way of using the Internet as a proxy for the whole thing and conclude the Internet this or the Internet that