Should the Government Control Internet Standards?
One role of the government is to protect the country and make its citizens feel safe through policy and regulation. But in today's digital era, policy making is moving to the people, and we are witnessing individual corporations - be they for profit or not - getting more involved in Internet standards.
A panel of industry experts convened at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and moderated by ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick, discussed the issues surrounding Internet standards. We've written up our notes below and hope to begin a conversation about whether Internet standards should be administrated by private organizations or our leaders in the White House.
Standards and Government Intervention
Once upon a time, "back in the bad old days," Kirkpatrick began, "the railways of the USA all had different track widths and as a result different companies couldn't drive their trains everywhere. Once train track width was standardized, an entire new era of commerce began."
It is interesting to note that it was Congress which finally intervened and decreed that the standard width of railway tracks would be 4-foot, eight and-a-half inches after experiencing problems transporting supplies during the Civil War. The upshot? A standardized railway system that not only offered national transportation, but provided more diverse business opportunities.
Clearly, identifying and working to standards is integral to growth and success.
Web Standards and the Importance of Interoperability
Despite many great minds working on standards in an attempt to bring unity to the Web, there are still major hurdles to overcome; the biggest of which, according to the panel is interoperability.
Eran Hammer-Lahav, the director of standards development at Yahoo! explained that when people visit a site, they expect it to work in the same fashion regardless of where they visit it from; home, work, mobile, Web. "If we want to build that type of Web, we have to interoperate with other companies and we have to do it in a way that is very inclusive," he explained.
For Web designers and developers, cross-browser compatibility has been a long term issue. Each browser implements JavaScript, HTML, CSS etc. somewhat differently and this can result in a myriad of issues for the user; from barely noticeable visual differences to pages that break across browsers..
Although the W3C has created standards for the various formats in an attempt to ensure content is displayed consistently across all browsers, adhering to them is recommended only, not compulsory, and as a result many sites are still not cross-browser compatible. While this may not be a major concern for everyone, when it comes to business it's essential.
David Rudin, an attorney in Microsoft's Interoperability Group, pointed out that if you want to sell your products to governments, some will expect certain interoperability standards to be met and if your organization can't meet the expectations, your organization won't be considered.
Interoperability and Online Identity
Six Apart's David Recordon, after explaining that Facebook has been in a dominant position for years in terms of both platform and mindshare, went on to say that Facebook Connect, the service that lets you take your online identity with you all over the Web, may be just what the industry needs.
While the December 2008 news from Facebook may have been welcomed by its users, others saw its proprietary code as a direct attack on OpenID as the two systems were not interoperable. Although Facebook formalized its support of the OpenID Foundation in February this year by officially joining the board, only time will tell whether this will be beneficial to the general Internet community.
"Whenever somebody controls the market, or somebody creates the market, others jump in and look at ways to compete," added Hammer-Lahav.
But if competition is the key, it brings up an interesting question. Identification systems are not new. Microsoft rolled out Passport in 1999. Does this mean the industry has been competing for ten years, trying to develop a standard, only to return to the point where Microsoft was a decade ago? Have we gone full circle?
Interestingly, while the broader Internet community wasn't very keen on the idea of Passport ten years ago because of concerns that Microsoft would control a crucial component of the Internet; today, it is embracing Facebook Connect even though it appears that many of the same issues apply.
"Essentially, Facebook is trying to replace all logins with their own, and control the creation, distribution and application of the social graph using their proprietary platform." Chris Saad, co-founder of the Data Portability project wrote on his blog.
Additionally, with Facebook Connect, there are greater issues at stake; specifically, accountability. While Microsoft is held accountable by shareholders, Facebook, a private company, shares no such responsibility.
"The most scary part of this," Saad wrote, "is that while Facebook is quietly and methodically building out this vision with massive partners, the standards community is busy squabbling about naming the open alternative. Is it Data Portability? Is the Open Web? is it Open Social? Is it Federated Identity?"
So Who Should be in Charge of Standards
With the Internet at such a crucial governance point, the question of regulation must be considered.
Despite the success of the transcontinental railroad, in the online world, a 1984 type scenario where our actions are governed by Big Brother doesn't appeal; neither does the other extreme - total anarchy on the Internet - where people can do bad things without consequence.
So, does that mean there is a space in between the two for an alternative, and if so, should that alternative be the organizations that in the main work to their own agendas?
It's a complicated situation and we'd love to know what you think. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Governments have the ability to destroy things and make it harder and unsafer.
The standards the any government will be charged of are those to protect strong and rich, not simple and poor.
if any one cares for his safety or his family's he/she need to be in charge
NO, Governments should NOT control Internet Standards.
The reason is simple. Major governments would use standards (eg. how NATO is governed) to enforce their economy and businesses, and destroy the economy of competitors governments. Eg: USA would create standards to outcompete companies in other places.
It may be used as a Warfare strategy from leader governments (G10).
The government should stay out of internet standards. Web standards are working very well, and you should only bring in the government if something is working very, very badly. With all browsers becoming 100% standards-compliant, and the web sure to follow, it is a strange time to wonder if privately-made web standards work. People used to worry about Microsoft making proprietary standards for the Web, and look how far we've come since then. Facebook Connect will lose, too, eventually. The web has been steadily becoming more open for a long time now. It is now, in fact, the best-running system in the world. And government is the worst.
Back off!
Just because the Feds need to have more control over banks to stop them from crashing the economy does not make them experts in management.
The best thing they can do is what they have already done. Fund basic research that helps new things like the internet get started and then stay out of it, unless REQUIRED.
Keep the greedy taxman away from the internet and it will continue to be the best tool ever created.
No the Government should not control the internet.
If they tried to I would become a supergeek and make my own "NEW" internet for the rest of us!
F*#$#T@$#$@ the Government! :) Power to the people! :)
Governments have proven failures of competence over and over.
(It may be argued that even the august W3C is incompetent. One may so judge from their writings, as has the WCAG Samurai. But that is another issue.)
Rule by committee too often leads to "construction of a camel in the place of a horse." The internet must be left free to evolve as a living thing, not bogged down in mazes of bureaucratic regulations.
Yes, i think so too. The governmant should stay out of the internet standards because too many rules are not good for the transparency!
I think there has to be a balance. The government should be involved on some levels, however there needs to be a lot of education of lawmakers about technology. (which is hard)
I think the current argument about regulation or deregulation and its contribution to the financial crisis represents this problem somewhat.
Too little is bad...and too much is bad.
There needs to be a balance. However with the Internet there is a certain amount of crowd policing and self regulation that doesn't seem to occur many other places.
Education and balance to regulation is the key. (did I say balance enough?)
wow! thanks for raising this issue. I was going to blog about this topic over weekend(probably more than one blogs). I also believe that the governments should stay out of Internet standards but sadly they are already in it.
see the wiki entry for open standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
every government from Venezuala to New Zealand has its own interpretation. However, I also think that the W3C - by only allowing big companies - has done itself a disfavour. I am more enthusiatic about the work of the Open Web Foundation which accepts ordinary members(not just companies). In an era of G20, we dont need governments to create standards - but the w3c also has its limittaions.
Especially with Cloud computing, a more holistic approch to standards is needed. interesting to get more views rgds Ajit
Absolutely not...its called "we are adults" and "we are parents" and "we can handle this ourselves without their" "65 year old who thinks they are in touch with the teenagers of this world"...
Leave it be!
About Govs.
I will assume that most people who have replied so far are north americans, who are usually suspicious about their governments. It's a very cultural thing entrenched in generations (maybe because the first movers had to fight the british to become a nation.) In Europe the feeling is different. So yes governments could have a take and they do on many many many things already. Look at ITU for example which is an agency of UN.
Would it be good? It is more subtle. I guess it really depends on the way it is done. For example, when a government is adopting WCAG as a referential for accessibility. They are modifying the world of the technology by solidifying an option.
There is no perfect models but governments can have a role not in making the technology, but by requiring one technology over another one. (It usually leads to other issues, both benefits and drawbacks, but not too different that the issues we have so far.)
About W3C.
There is a big misleading idea about W3C. "It's only big companies who can participate…". That is *wrong*.
The W3C has many kind of members, people participating with different status, depending on the technologies. People should read the W3C Process document. On a Working Group participate people who are *experts* (check the status of invited expert) of the technology from *students* to indeed engineers of big companies. For those who will pull out the IETF (which is not Royalty Free by default) and/or Open Web Foundation, check first who is participating (names) and then search for the name of their companies… Oh. Oh. Players in the field. Surprise. ;)
The question is not about how much it costs, but who is really participating and who is an expert. W3C has in its process a room for experts participation, even if they are students.
There are nuances.
Hasn't the Government ruined enough already?
Everything they touch turns to shit.
Which government ? The US doesn't control the internet anymore than any other country. Nor should the different subjects of site usability, inter-operability, trusted identities and single logon be confused, they are distinct and separate. Standards of usability as recommended by industry gurus such as Nielsen are adopted and widespread, because they are based on sound common sense, but at the end of the day site uability design is subjective and cannot be legislated or imposed. Inter-operability may come in time - and for the semantic web to achieve its lauded aims, greater inter-operability is needed - but the internet is a world wide resource and no single government will be able to impose a standard. Trusted IDs are areas where government legislation can make in-roads because the ISPs are gate keepers to the internet and being companies governments are able to effect control over them. Single logon ? great idea - it was in the 80s 90s 00s and it's still never happened. I spent 3 years working on implementing single logons for corporates in the 90s when , ahem, cooperative processing was the buzztech, and worked with the CCITT and ECMA committees in the 80s on similar concepts and there was much argument then about whether the government would impose standards, especially as the internet core was then heavily US government controlled. These debates may have new audiences - but they have been around a long time - and the evidence of the last 30 years is that will be around an equally long time
Lidja said...
Should the Government Control Internet Standards?
The answer is NO. Private industries do know better.
Please name one thing the government touches that works better than it did previously. That aside, the government can barely deliver a piece of paper for $0.42 across town, does anyone really think they can keep up with the pace of innovation?
I actually laughed out loud when I read your article title which may be more accurate titled as "How to completely destroy one of the only remaining innovation engines in the US economy." This is similar to the brilliant idea of handing over the DNS system to the UN, the most ineffective organization on the planet.
What has happened to this country such that the media is pushing fascist ideas on a constant drone?
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i can't even believe this is/was considered.
in china,I don't want goverment control the internet standards.Through the goverment now is controling the internet ,I think it's really a terrible things
if there is no goverment in the internet is also a bad thing.I think through the goverment don't part to make the standards,it also can control the internet with other organization
The internet is a worldwide network with the sole purpose of connecting almost every computer in the world together in an organized matter, and does is not owned by any individual company/companies. Rather, it is a public domain network, but is acesses through many individual companies offering access to it for a fee. The government has no more control over it than any other country...if the government were to make certain internet laws about the standards, they would have to deal with the rest of the world and what they think about it. what if the united states bans something on the internet and someone somewhere else in the world did it? they wouldn't get in trouble...would we? we'd still be able to acess it...so would we get in trouble? it makes absolutly no sense and the government has absolutly no great control over it. if they did...this country would be a tyrany in no time...if they have control over the internet...it would mean that they have control over pretty much the world...they could bring down satilites, let out criminals, take money, close down buisinuses...they would have complete control.
thanks Karl. yes you can participate as an expert member but why not do what the open web foundation does? i.e. make it easy for anyone to joing and participate at any level. In Europe for a company my size it costs us 7800 euros/year.
we cannot afford this.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fees?country=United+Kingdom&quarter=04-01&year=2009&quarter2=04-01&year2=2010
Ironically it was a blog I was going to do before I saw this post. Shall post it anyway. In either case, the discusssion is a good one i think kind rgds Ajit
The Open Web Foundation doesn't have for now the structure. See Oauth which is going to IETF coming from Open Web Foundation. From what I hear from Open Web Foundation is that they are trying to clear up a few of the things about participation before pushing it to… a standard organizaton. Open Web Foundation has no permanent employees either. It could be good or bad.
About the fees, same answer as above.
The good question is how do we (The Web community) make it possible to reduce or remove the fees of W3C? Let'say how do we create a 10 million dollars budget.
http://www.la-grange.net/2008/12/12/w3c-budget
Interesting question, but I'd have to say no.
Something we've realised in our work with the DataPortability Project, is that just because an organisation mandates a standard, doesn't mean the market adopts it.
The existing standards bodies like W3C, IETF, Liberty Aliiance and OASIS have a whole alphabet soup of standards that no one has heard about. Community driven standards I believe are the best way to develop them because they take it out of the committee room, and are based on practical issues not academic approaches.
The limit of any government in this area is to endorse a particular standard within its own branches and organs.
That might be enough to settle much of the bickering, but even that may be too much involvement.
Let the entrepreneur's and the market handle this sort of thing. I certainly don't want to be bogged down in the inevitable stifling bureaucratic nightmare that is bound to come from excessive government involvement.
Question....
What are standards?
Who defines these standards?
Which country owns the internet?
Which government controls and monitors the so called standards?
What are the jurisdictions for the so called government?
Does this government body impose its standards over other countries?
What if a country refuses to be part of this experiment?
What would happen if someone breaks a standard?
How does the infringement get enforced?
How does the so called government make sure that the person does not just go to an offshore platform and restart the same thing over again where the so called government has no jurisdiction?
Just some thoughts but I am certain that this is a dream conjured up by someone who has their head in clouds and does not really understand the internet.... well neither do I but I do not claim myself to be an expert and publish such articles.
~Cheers
So the question is : Should a law exist that makes Microsoft pay for releasing in purpose a web browser that is not conformant to W3C standards ?
The answer is "yes".
Doing that as the dominant vendor does hurt competition. It is very bad for consumers and leads to monopoly.
Should not be controled but at the homes of users.
Government should not control net. If they did we would
not know the big picture, total control.
SHOULD INTERNET USE IT'S POWER SUCH AS DID GOOGLE(MY OPENION) IN ELECTION---THEY HAD TO MUCH POWER--BOUGHT OUT COMPETATION---THANKS
What is wrong with the way it's set up now? Seems having more regulation would stifle innovation and be used against other countries. While this might be good for US businesses, it's bad for those of us who rely on the free flow of information to live, work and play.
If the Gov. Had control over the internet then the rest of are privacy will be abolished. Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsxxsrn2Tfs&feature=PlayList&p=ACA43C7BDB02D1F9&index=0&playnext=1 It will let you know that government has been in controle all this time with other organizations and companies. If they so decide to have more standerds than they can censor any content such as real news networks and other useful info that is not on a lieing network of fox news or cnn. The internet is are only source of the truth And the people on top of the pyramid know that.
Part of the popularity of the internet is the abundance of varied and timely information. We see what government does with "news" sources like the selective coverage and non-information that was served up as news on the partisan networks and partisan papers during the Gulf war and the Iraq war. When I want timely and accurate information I head for my keyboard. I prefer to read hard copy for leisure reading but publications and networks are deluding themselves if they think they can even closely approach the internet on these measures. I like the fact that I can ferret out even the most obscure arguments and positions on any issue and do the math myself without being limited to the subjective point of view of any given mainstream news source. I believe that for the most part, the average reader is quite capable of discerning amongst facts and arguments, provided they are given All of the facts, and further, they will generally be able to reach a good conclusion. Dialogue amongst the average people is a good thing when there is a desire to reach a true conclusion even if an unpleasant one. Conventional media has morphed into meaningless patter, by design. We are given a select set of facts that will ensure a conclusion that supports the agenda of the news outlet. Typically the agenda is thinly veiled partisanship. I believe that the fox ought not to be appointed the guardian of the chicken coop. We have already seen the actions of governments threatened by open dialogue resulting in the imposition of laws forbidding their citizens to communicate with people, even within their own country about contentious events. People are going to jail for organizing protests using twitter for gods sake. Having said this, perhaps if more democratic countries were to act to pass rules etc. that preserve an open internet it would actually stand a chance of keeping the internet a meaningful source of factual information and strengthen those seeking democracy in their corner of the world.
JUST LEAVE THE INTERNET ALONE - WHY DOES IT NEED ANY CHANGE - IT DOESN'T. THIS IS JUST ABOUT CONTROL.
AND BEWARE PEOPLE BECAUSE MANY A DICTATORS STARTED WITH WIDESPREAD PROPAGANDA AND WERE VERY GOOD AT MARKETING THEMSELVES. THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT IS NOT EVEN BEING SUBTLE ABOUT THEIR TAKEOVERS OF EVERYTHING. THEY ARE ACTUALLY ADVERTISING IT AND ANYONE WHO HAS RAN A BUSINESS KNOWS THAT WHEN IT GETS TOO BIG YOU CAN NO LONGER MICROMANAGE WITH GOOD RESULTS.
Let's face it...back in 1984 when the govt stepped in to help, that was the initial idea. Now we can't afford to let the govt step in because it is so corrupted.
And letting them take over or control the internet is taking away free speech. The internet is the only place where people can blog their ideas or thoughts, where people can shop around to different companies without being told where or who they can shop with.
And right now business like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are wanting this "govt control" to go through, which to me is scary.
It has been proven time and time again. When something is born it is young and full of naive and mistakes and as it grows it learns from those mistakes and makes new ones. The older something gets the more mistakes it will make and learn from.
The web was not created to be controlled by a person or an organization. In fact it was created for the exact opposite reason. For someone or something to control what was meant to be uncontrolled would be the same as creating something just to destroy it. It is my belief that no government in the world ever really wanted the World Wide Web because the people of the world would have an abundance of information. This would in fact begin the deterioration of the propaganda that the governments of the world have fed their citizens for so long.
The main reason people want to control anything is because (1) They are greedy and want far more than they need.
(2) They fear that something will become more powerful than them.
(3) They fear that something will dissolve what they have worked so hard to maintain.
The World Wide Web is a wonderful resource of both technical and taboo material.
Unfortunately there are bad people in the world who want to bring harm to others. There are bad people in the world who want to hurt the ones we love. Unfortunately they too use the World Wide Web and it has become not just a powerful tool for you and I, but it has become a powerful tool for the bad people too.
Our government is just trying to protect us from the bad people. That is one reason they want to take our guns away, so the bad people can't shoot us. And when the bad people start stabbing us with forks the government will take our forks away from us too.
The point that I am trying to make is that when bad people do bad things the good people are the first to lose privileges while the bad people walk out of the courtroom on technicalities.
Should the www be controlled? Absolutely not. Should the www. Be uniformed? It sounds nice but ask yourself this, should all the PEOPLE of the world be uniformed? Should all the people of the world look the same and dress the same and act and talk the same.
The sad truth is that inevitably there will be one world government and they will control the www, and everything else. It is just a matter of time.
Just think about this for a moment.
One day all the good and law abiding people will be locked up to protect us from the bad people of the world.
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My name is Riptide and THE POWER OF EARTH IS INSIDE YOU.
Most of you are twits. The US Governmemt created the Internet based on the ARPANET project. The US Government has been in charge of the DNS root domain up until September of 2009. It didn't hurt the growth of the Internet too much did it?
Standards are best kept by those who know how to keep them. The Constitution of the United States of America empowers the US Congress to regulate trade both foreign and domestic and to set standards.
As Bob Hope said in his autobiography, Don't Shoot It's Only Me, I am seeing the current generation losing time and again to countries we defeated just a generation [or two] ago.