Dear Alain, dear all,

apologies for the belated reply. I had a period of increased workload + some minor (but annoying) health issues in the family.

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 5:59 PM, Alain Van Gaever <avangaev@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Andrea,

 

I went through the European Commission's Communication on Internet Governance

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=4453 

Congratulations. Now I'm sure that at least two persons on this planet read the whole Communication. ;)

And while I do not think the Coop-WG should engage in policy making on Internet Governance

Perhaps this is better discussed in another thread, but I'm a bit surprised by this assertion. Why wouldn't the Cooperation Working Group engage on this? Perhaps we have a different notion of "engage", "policy making" and even "Internet governance". ;)

– which is mainly what this Commission’s document is about - there is something which caught my eye …

… In section 6 of the Commission document it is mentioned: “[…] even where the technical discussion process is open, key decisions are frequently made by technical experts in the absence of broad stakeholder representation. An effective multistakeholder approach to specification setting on the internet will be based on efficient mutual interactions between technical and public policy considerations so that technical specifications more systematically take into account public policy concerns.[…] “

Indeed. However, let me also point out, for those who have not read the whole Communication :) that the European Commission's position is also that it "welcomes the efforts of the technical community to establish approaches to specification setting based on public policy concerns. Positive examples include technical guidance for privacy considerations in new protocols[26], the recognition of multilingualism for internationalised domain names, or accessibility standards for persons with disabilities". Just to make sure we don't have this conversation on the assumption that the Commission's position is one of outright criticism towards the technical community - it most definitively is not.
 

As someone who is interested in bridging the gap between technology and policy/legislation – and having worked in both environments - I am quite interested on how the European Commission sees this in practice. ….  I know in that document you propose "workshops", but that seems to signal language that is more easily understood by the policy/internet governance audience than the technical one.  This is by no means a criticism I am just trying to understand the meaning and implications of this section better.

I'm not taking any of this as a criticism and I'll try to answer your (and other WG members') questions to the best of my abilities, but please do keep in mind that in this section, as in most of the Communication, the European Commission is - on purpose - not overly prescriptive on the "how", while trying to state as clearly as possible the "what" (i.e. what would be desirable from our perspective).

This is mainly because - even though some people might beg to disagree :) - the European Commission is quite clear on the fact that in many fields, including the Internet / ICT one, a "top-down" approach is not the right one. It is therefore preferable to have a proper conversation on what are the options and try to find consensus, within the constraints each party has (which in the case of the Commission there is certainly applicable EU legislation - i.e. we cannot accept solutions which would violate EU law! But I digress...).

So let me offer some ideas / views, with the understanding that we are truly interested in fostering a conversation about this.

It would be much appreciated if you would be able to expand on that ? 
  • What would this mean in practical terms for the technical community?
It's not easy to assess now what different solutions would "mean in practical terms", before we flash out better what such solutions might look like.

And to be honest, I am not entirely convinced we are already at a stage in which all various parties agree that the goal is in and by itself valuable. (But I'm confident we'll get there :).

But leaving this aside for the sake of discussion, I'd rather focus on some of the key characteristics that should be present in any process of mutual engagement.

It should be structured, because 'ad hoc' solutions (e.g. someone sends an email to a contact in the Commission, or any other public administration, to enquire whether work on specification X might impact on policy Y) are neither scalable nor sustainable in the long-term. Structure also helps clarify the rules of engagement, the scope of discussion(s) and more generally the expectations on each side.

It should be regular, for almost the same reasons. Regularity also allows "early engagement", which is in and by itself challenging as sometimes public authorities are under different constraints than the technical community in how much they can discuss a policy / law while it is being negotiated. The problem is less acute when we are discussing about existing law / policies, of course.

On the "early", allow me a side note. I heard many times people from the technical community / industry lamenting that public authorities (including, but not limited to, the European Commission) intervene "late" in the discussion and this somehow disrupts the process. I would like some concrete examples of this, but in general I need to observe that one could also reverse the criticism and say that it is actually the responsibility of participants in a technical discussion to make sure that what they are discussing / deciding upon is compatible with applicable law. I think that a more structured system of interaction could benefit all parties, certainly from the perspective of making sure information flows well in both directions.

The system should be inclusive. Here, let me point out that there is a difference between being "open" and being "inclusive". Simply saying that a mailing list or a meeting are open for everyone to participate is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition if one wants to make sure that the "right" persons / organisations (as in: with the right expertise, insights, understanding etc) are around the table. Again to make the counter-example, I could very easily tell people that (1) the yearly Work Programme of the European Commission; (2) the list of on-going / planned public consultations; (3) existing EU legislation in all official languages: (4) reports, studies, impact assessments etc are all publicly available online. Yet, I know very well that for someone who does not work routinely in my environment, most of this information will be lost in a labyrinth. So again, a better structured system / process can be mutually beneficial for all parties.

As a final remark, please do note that while we are obviously particularly interested in the role of public authorities in the process of defining / developing technology, when the latter might have significant impacts on public policy matters (which I personally believe is the case for almost all Internet-based technology) what we are suggesting is a system which allows structured engagement with all stakeholders, including academia, civil society and others.
  • What would "good look like" once this "multistakeholder approach to specification setting" is put in place ? 
Sorry, here you lost me. I don't understand the question.
 
  • Also, what is the distinction between the European Internet Industry and what I imagine to be the Rest-of-the-World Internet Industry?
I don't want to sound flippant, but I find the question a bit strange. To me, it sounds like asking what is the difference between European industry and non-European industry. You will never find a 100% perfect definition and there will always be corner cases. So, to make sure that I can provide the right answer to your question, could you help me by explaining what is the purpose of the question? (Or perhaps better phrased: what would change, in our discussion, if we were talking about European Internet industry as opposed to Internet industry?)

Ciao,

Andrea

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