Sunday, February 29, 2004
ICANN and Verisign are in for a battle royal
Drew Cullen at The Register tells the story in evocative language here.
This battle has been brewing for a while and I have been watching the preplay with interest.
My questions are these:
The internet is supposed to be about cross governmental and political communication. It is about knowledge and information being available to all. Entertainment is part of that also because entertainment includes artistic knowledge like art and music. The anarchistic leanings of the initial internet growth in the early nineties was certainly part of that. The right to free speech and the ability of individuals in press censored countries to speak out was lauded as a benefit of this. Once governments around the world realised that they couldn't control the internet and it was growing fast, they attempted to regulate it. There have been arguments about charging for email, laws passed giving government agencies power to snoop on your email, censorship on net use in China and other communist countries, discussion about the so called digital divide etc.
Now it may come down to - government control or commercial control. Which is the lesser of these two evils. Verisign would be in a position to use its power to the boss of the internet if it wanted. ICANN or ITU has the power (maybe) to stop it - but to do so must take control itself.
What happened to the gentle group of slightly weird earnest nerd types huddling around a computer excitedly gesturing, drinking from stale cans of coke and pushing their spectacles up their noses when they slide down. These scientific types (boffins) used to own the internet - in fact they created it. Tim Berner-Lees did anyway. (Apologies for the stereotypical image.)
Now they are trying to recreate it.
This is well and good, but what about the infrastructure. Do we care who owns it and how it is run as long as we can use it? In the way that railroads and highways made huge financial empires for some smart and ruthless individuals who took control of construction of that infrastructure, so we have seen companies involved in the internet infrastructure take commanding positions financially. Intel, Cisco, Verisign, and the Phone and ISP companies providing the last mile infrastructure are all examples. User technology creators such as Microsoft, Symantec, Google, Linux and Hardware suppliers HP, IBM, Apple have all got on the bandwagon. Numerous are those gone by the wayside, lost in the wilderness, taken over or bought out. Netscape and score of smaller companies swamped by the might of Microsoft.
Is the control of this structure going to end up in regulated government hands like the roads and railways are now? We know that the government is inherently bureaucratic, inefficient and slow to move to market demand. The internet is about knowledge and it needs to be at the cutting edge of the technology.
So my vote is with Verisign. Yes I am a capitalist, but I also believe what comes around goes around. They have held a position through the low income years and are now entitled to the large income years. (Check out what an S-Curve in marketing is to understand that one.)
More importantly I don't want any government or QUANGO to gain control over the internet's key structure. Market forces would cause Verisign to lose its influence if another company could evolve the internet technologically in its direction. The government would naturally resist such an organisation wresting control from its grasp even if it was in a better direction for us all.
Drew Cullen at The Register tells the story in evocative language here.
This battle has been brewing for a while and I have been watching the preplay with interest.
My questions are these:
The internet is supposed to be about cross governmental and political communication. It is about knowledge and information being available to all. Entertainment is part of that also because entertainment includes artistic knowledge like art and music. The anarchistic leanings of the initial internet growth in the early nineties was certainly part of that. The right to free speech and the ability of individuals in press censored countries to speak out was lauded as a benefit of this. Once governments around the world realised that they couldn't control the internet and it was growing fast, they attempted to regulate it. There have been arguments about charging for email, laws passed giving government agencies power to snoop on your email, censorship on net use in China and other communist countries, discussion about the so called digital divide etc.
Now it may come down to - government control or commercial control. Which is the lesser of these two evils. Verisign would be in a position to use its power to the boss of the internet if it wanted. ICANN or ITU has the power (maybe) to stop it - but to do so must take control itself.
What happened to the gentle group of slightly weird earnest nerd types huddling around a computer excitedly gesturing, drinking from stale cans of coke and pushing their spectacles up their noses when they slide down. These scientific types (boffins) used to own the internet - in fact they created it. Tim Berner-Lees did anyway. (Apologies for the stereotypical image.)
Now they are trying to recreate it.
This is well and good, but what about the infrastructure. Do we care who owns it and how it is run as long as we can use it? In the way that railroads and highways made huge financial empires for some smart and ruthless individuals who took control of construction of that infrastructure, so we have seen companies involved in the internet infrastructure take commanding positions financially. Intel, Cisco, Verisign, and the Phone and ISP companies providing the last mile infrastructure are all examples. User technology creators such as Microsoft, Symantec, Google, Linux and Hardware suppliers HP, IBM, Apple have all got on the bandwagon. Numerous are those gone by the wayside, lost in the wilderness, taken over or bought out. Netscape and score of smaller companies swamped by the might of Microsoft.
Is the control of this structure going to end up in regulated government hands like the roads and railways are now? We know that the government is inherently bureaucratic, inefficient and slow to move to market demand. The internet is about knowledge and it needs to be at the cutting edge of the technology.
So my vote is with Verisign. Yes I am a capitalist, but I also believe what comes around goes around. They have held a position through the low income years and are now entitled to the large income years. (Check out what an S-Curve in marketing is to understand that one.)
More importantly I don't want any government or QUANGO to gain control over the internet's key structure. Market forces would cause Verisign to lose its influence if another company could evolve the internet technologically in its direction. The government would naturally resist such an organisation wresting control from its grasp even if it was in a better direction for us all.
