Meeting on the Future of the Internet - Mired in lack of transparency

Level of Transparency these days depicted above

Why is transparency such a difficult proposition nowadays? It seems to be constantly popping up as an issue in nearly any large bureaucratic process. There are only two possible answers of course - either a belief that true democracy (which requires information as a basis for choices) is untenable as a governing mechanism, or that democracy is undesirable to those "leaders" unwilling to conduct transparent proceedings. I would lean towards the latter. For those more interested in the reasoning behind this, I've written another post here on a concept called 'the iron law of meritocracy' that may be relevant. Anyhow, I digress from the purpose of this post and that is point out that the future of the internet is now being discussed and possibly decided behind closed doors in the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) from Dec 3rd to Dec 14th, 2012. 

It may be redundant to stress the importance that the internet has made in the world today, as anyone reading this is likely to have a very healthy appreciation of the tremendous role the internet has played in leveling the field for information spreading, opinion sharing and ability of dissenting voices to be heard and recognized. Yet, even aside from the direct role that the internet has played, it has also had cascading effects, much like a vaccine for an eradicated disease which has benefitted generations of people aside from the ones who've been given the vaccine. The reason that it has been able to play such a large role is the unregulated and decentralized nature of the internet. Of course, the infrastructure behind it and optimizing it's spread and growth may require some regulation, but it is important to not let this be the disguise under which the internet itself is controlled. About a decade ago, a group of 4 engineers in Microsoft wrote an impressive, almost 'prophetic', paper entitled "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution" on how the growth of a network system such as the internet would ensure that information continues to spread at a increasingly faster rate as technology grows, regardless of attempts to restrain it, due to it's inherent decentralized nature. Whether this continues to remain true remains to be seen. 

An agency of the UN known as "International Telecommunication Union" (ITU) is hosting the WCIT to go over and revise the decades old International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) which govern standards and regulations for information and communication technologies. The ITU, as noted by Wired, does a lot of important work, such as "sets spectrum and technology standards, has done much to improve global interoperability and efficiency, and helped increase access to information and communication technologies in developing nations." Having said that, the preparatory documents to the important  upcoming meeting have been very secretive, with only member governments and a few other parties being given access rights. Some leaked documents have made their way out though and have shown to be potentially very worrying as they include proposals for restrictions on online privacy, free expression, access to information, and ICT use around the world. 

Civil society, of course, quickly banded together and proceeded to draft and sign into documentation their concerns of the effects this would have on human rights (available as a petition here, do check and sign if you agree), to which the ITU secretary stated, "WCIT-12 is not in any way going to be challenging Article 19, or indeed any other article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". While a mere statement seems to hardly address the concerns, if true, it doesn't explain the lack of transparency or the high barriers it takes to join the proceedings ($2,000 - $35,000 annual membership costs). These high barriers leave out some of most important stake holders in the whole process - civil society and human rights organizations. Not to mention that the current process is giving all power to governments, when we currently have governments of the most powerful democracy (USA) and the largest democracy (India) occupying spots 1 and 2 respectively on Google's list of user surveillance requests - an indication of clear disregard for information privacy and freedom of speech. Yes, the country with the most power in the ITU, is also the one that is number 1 by a large margin in Google's list. How much confidence does that inspire in the decision making process of the ITU? I can't claim to be very convinced, especially when what is required for true growth from here is more power to other voices from around the world and not more centralization. 

Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we will be able to say that the Internet is still as mobilizing as it has been thus far. 

For those interested in following more on this, you can check out the following:

A recent event by Stanford "Is this the End of the Internet"(video), 

Google's Take Action page, 

The WCIT Leaks page 

CDT's analysis of the key proposals

As well as the petition mentioned above. 

(Thanks to Kruttika for the links)

Google may need to change their motto

(As posted by me on SpicyIP)

Coming this week, Google will be making what could be a ground breaking step in it's search algorithm. Google will start downranking sites in proportion to the the number of valid copyright removal notices that the site receives. According to Google, "This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily". While on the surface, this seems like a good anti-piracy move, I shall explain why I think it could be a major problem. 

I had earlier covered some of the problems with the 'personalization' that online giants seem to be doing. That argument was more controversial - essentially claiming that they are not giving people what they want, but rather that they are giving people what Google (for eg) thinks they want (based on their search history) and this limits their information intake and presents a less balanced / less neutral result. I would go further to add that even if they kept giving people what they wanted on a search term, ie, something they're looking up information on, but limiting it to results based on the user's history, this is akin to encouraging a society where views are discouraged from being contradicted and debate and discussion takes a backseat. 

However, this new change to algorithms gives rise to an easier argument : that the search engine giant is presenting users what others want them to see and this is inherently a problem. Google emphasizes that it won't remove content unless a valid copyright removal request is received. However, copyright is certainly not a black and white affair. Do you create an algorithm that detects fair use? Or public domain? No, it's not possible. So what about the notices that target content that falls in these categories? And those could still be good-faith mistakes. What about all the bad-faith / reckless notices that MPAA / RIAA have had no hesitation in sending out (including to dead people and a homeless man!)? Also, Google states that they would be taking down sites with high number of removal notices. What about the following (hypothetical) situation: A small site 'swarajshare' which gives out only pirated media but only stores 500 movies -- vs -- vimeo or veoh or viddler or youtube even! They are all massive and certainly store more than 500 movies. But they probably receive 1000s of valid takedown notices. Does n't this now mean that youtube or vimeo would be lower in their search results than swarajshare even when users are not looking for pirated material? And does changing their algorithm the first step onto a slippery slope? Do other search engines now also give in? Does Google start contemplating more such steps to 'stop piracy'? These are all questions that we will probably see answers to in the near future and can only hope that access to knowledge and creativity aren't killed in the guise of protecting content. (On that note, slightly tangential but a here is a thought provoking study on one of the effects of No copyright - though to be clear I am not an advocate of 'no copyright' but rather of more limited copyright protection)

Rohan George puts it aptly when he says "More than anything else, this signals the end of an era when Google's main interest was delivering information and not 'content'". 

Some sources speculate that Google could be conceding this change because it needs media companies to keep them in their good books in order for them to successfully build an eco-system around their all-in-one Google Play store. And of course, this certainly seems legal and above-board... but I'm not so sure that restricting access to knowledge unnecessarily is really 'doing no evil'.