Governance of the Internet ... will it be by a centralized authority, a democratically elected international body, or will it continue to emerge as a self-organized, decentralized system that is adaptable but not always perfect? And which is the best defense against the information age challenges of spam, spyware and intrusive viruses?
Three cyberscholars are wrestling with that question and defending an early exposure draft of their paper "The Accountable Net." They are on a road show that stopped at Yale Law School last week, as part of the Harvard-Yale Cyber Scholar Working Group's monthly meetings. Yale's Information Society Project hosted the presentation and defense of the paper by Susan Crawford, David Johnson and John Palfrey. (More ... )
Esther Dyson recently described the accountable Net in an article for the New York Times as "an Internet of people, companies and services that are accountable to one another rather than to some omniscient central authority." The current anonymity of users on the Net is part of the challenge to be overcome. Dyson: "The basic rule is transparency: You need to know whom you are dealing with, or be able to take proper measures to protect yourself. The accountable Net is a complex system of interacting parts, where users answer not just to some central authority, but to the people and organizations whom they affect."
Dyson concedes that even in a Net that is peer-governed through social networks, there is a vital role for governments, "ready to prosecute extreme cases of fraud and misrepresentation (as well as crimes such as identity theft, antitrust violations and other traditionally offline crimes)."
The three cyberscholars and Dyson express confidence in the ability of individuals and private firms, acting cooperatively, to develop responses to the triple threat of spam, spyware and security. They suggest that the alternatives of strong government control at one center, or of a control system dependent upon a global democratic consensus, leave much to be desired.
At Yale, their proposal came under spirited challenge from scholars who may not share the author's confidence. They plan to incorporate the comments they are receiving from this and other appearances into their final paper.
See: Susan Crawford blog :: The Theory of Everything
The Accountable Net will be a topic at PC Forum this spring, with presentations by heavyweight cybersecurity cognescenti.
Post Script:
Since my note on the Yale presentation, John Palfrey has posted his remarks re the Accountable Net, as made at a subsequent conference in Geneva, in "Internet Governance Presentation, and the Accountable Net" (2/25/04) on his weblog. That includes a link to the current working draft of the Accountable Net paper.