[discuss] [governance] [ciresearchers] NETmundial documentsonline for comment

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Sun Apr 20 22:31:55 UTC 2014


Brian,

When I wrote that I wasn't thinking specifically of NetMundial.  But it is most certainly something that will need to be addressed, and my guess is, sooner rather than later and as likely as not in the context of the Internet and "Internet Governance". 

(BTW, I decided to check my sometimes faulty memory and the estimate is that roughly 4.7% of the US economy is Internet related. So with the US economy currently being in the $17 trillion range that translates into around $800 billion being Internet based in the US and (est.) $4 trillion for the G20.) 

M

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian E Carpenter [mailto:brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2014 11:18 PM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: 'Avri Doria'; discuss at 1net.org
Subject: Re: [discuss] [governance] [ciresearchers] NETmundial documentsonline for comment

On 20/04/2014 21:20, michael gurstein wrote:
> Thanks for the reference Avri and I've now had a chance to take a look 
> at your paper...
> 
> Useful, but I'm not sure how far it advances the discussion...
> 
> What I noticed in the paper and in effectively all of the "academic"
> discussions on global (Internet) governance is that it completely 
> ignores the elephant in the room i.e. that global (Internet) 
> governance is no long about how to move bits and bytes around 
> efficiently and effectively (if it ever was).  Now, and with 
> ever-increasing importance, global (Internet) governance is about how 
> vast reaches of Internet based wealth and power are managed and distributed.

These are issues of how society is governed, not about how the Internet is governed. After all, as you suggest, 90% of wealth and power are *not* mediated by the Internet.

NETmundial is certainly doomed to total failure if it takes on the questions of wealth and power.

   Brian




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