[discuss] [governance] RE: FW: Comcast undertakes 9 year IETF cosponsorship!?

Sun Mar 23 06:52:41 UTC 2014

On Mar 23, 2014, at 1:47 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> No, not normal. especially if a particular standards body (1) makes decisions that are very  crucial to public interest, and (2) have no 'public' oversight mechanism which itself could be ensured to be fully independent of private funding..... And IETF qualifies by both criteria. 

Parminder - 

   Could you elaborate on the first point?  I'm at a loss how the IETF makes
   public policy decisions, except in the rare cases where there is a protocol
   tradeoff which effectively embeds a particular public policy norm into its 
   operation (and these are quite rare)

   For example, the IETF folks (collectively) recognize that there is a norm
   with regards to personally identifiable information being used in protocols,
   and hence makes efforts to include an encryption option for those who 
   desire.  

   Given that the IETF protocols are voluntarily used, could explain how
   "crucial to public interest" decisions happen?   Aren't governments 
   supposed to engage in laws/rulemaking when there are issues that
   are crucial to public interest?

Thanks!
/John

Disclaimer: My views alone.

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