OECD June 2008 Ministerial: some issues are jelling?

The OECD-NSF Workshop -- "Social and Economic Factors Shaping the Future of the Internet" was held in the National Science Foundation Boardroom, in Arlington on 31st January 2007.

See more document (including our proposal on open standards) at: http://www.oecd.org/document/59/0,2340,en_2649_34223_37921851_1_1_1_1,00.html#add

This meeting was per invitation only (we all had 2 badges, one for the building and one for the room?) but the spacious boardroom overlooking Arlington, Virginia was almost full. A large round table with the 33 speakers surrounded by about 60 people coming from Washington DC, Canada, Japan and other places. The meeting was formal and recorded but I do not know when and if anything about it will be public.

The OECD had invited “internet experts” to prepare for the June 2008 Ministerial meeting in Seoul, Korea. Participants included “founders”, Internet cult figures, ambassador, US Government people, big businesses, a few public interest groups (EPIC, CPTech, CPSR and PK), and also many academics. Many knew each others, some from the early days of “internet policy making”, OECD meetings, ICANN and other “prestigious gatherings” of stakeholders.

The stated goals of the meeting was to explore the “Social and Economic Factors Shaping the Future of the Internet” according to a list of 30 proposed issues (see below) that participants had ranked in priority, urgency and difficulty before the meeting. The premise was that whether you think the Internet is working great or not, it is time to start thinking about the “future of the Internet”. It was a little odd to be (at 8am) with a relatively small group of people working on the “future on the Internet” but since WIFI was working, one was able to do some reality check once in a while.

The keynote speaker, David Clark (MIT) launched the discussion with a great (and classic) speech and a call for a new research agenda “to face the opportunities and challenges ahead”. The starting point was that "the Internet must be accessible, trusted and secure, as well as able to robustly scale to meet the increasing reliance placed on it." What do you want the global network to look like in 15 to 20 years, he asked. And he called for us to “step away from constraints and start imagining why we should re-conceive the Internet and what were the challenges and desired outcomes”.

For the workshop organizers, there are “three trends that are increasingly influencing the current Internet’s ability to meet the requirements of users:
- Widening security threats endanger network operation;
- Digital convergence increases the functionality and places new demands on the Internet; and
- An increasing number and variety of communities and businesses critically rely on the Internet.”

The following 30 issues were divided into 4 sessions: economic landscape (1-16), Social implications (17-25), the international dimension (26-30) followed by a "priority setting and a wrap-up.

1/ Ensuring a healthy ecosystem for private network service providers.
2/ Financing edge infrastructure build-out.
3/ Ensuring investments in better technologies continue to be made.
4/ Ensuring competition and innovation at the service level/at the edge.
5/ Using public investment incentives e.g. universal service obligations or other.
6/ Adapting public policy to network convergence: content/broadcasting convergence, telecommunications unbundling, fixed/mobile convergence, spectrum.
7/ Dealing with traffic exchange between networks.
8/ Empowering and protecting consumers.
9/ Preserving the Internet’s capacity to foster innovation and competition.
10/ Addressing new requirements of the shift from a one person per PC paradigm to a complex multi-device environment, especially wireless.
11/ Improving naming and addressing schemes to improve efficiency of internetworking and scalability of routing.
12/ Overcoming the global Internet protocol adoption problem. 4
13/ Developing holistic approaches to security of information systems and networks
14/ Aligning incentives of all stakeholders to increase security.
15/ Ensuring the Internet meets requirements as critical information infrastructure
16/ Being able to measure / assess the network’s performance for informed policy.
17/ Preserving the participatory nature of Internet content production.
18/ Encouraging interoperability of technologies and applications.
19/ Balancing interests of suppliers and users (e.g. IPR or DRM).
20/ Considering social norms, ethical values and existing laws in the development of Internet services.
21/ Factoring in societal benefits and public policy objectives (e-health, e-education, etc.) in considering “return-on-network investment”.
22/ Conducting societal risk assessments of possible impacts of mobile wireless and sensor networks and taking responsibility.
23/ Effectively protecting personal data in managing digital identities.
24/ Ensuring “privacy by design”.
25/ Balancing law enforcement needs with freedom, privacy and business impacts.
26/ Considering different national contexts’ and cultures’ impact on policy stances.
27/ Partnering internationally for research and development.
28/ Cross-border law enforcement for online security, privacy, consumer protection.
29/ Addressing political challenges to the Internet as it has evolved.
30/ Facilitating Internet roll-out in developing countries.

Now, on a OECD brochure on the OECD Minesterial meeting on the Future of the Internet (Seoul, Korea, 17-18 June 2008) you can read that 3 issues have been highlighted:

1/ Previously distinc communication platforms and services, such as broadcasting and telephony, are converging;
2/ The Internet has become a critical global economic and social infrastructure and;
3/ Security threats are increasingly severe and sophisticated

This could mean that the main issues for the 2008 Ministerial will be convergence, economics and security. If they jell.