[cooperation-wg] On the Communication from the European Commission - eager to hear your views

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 at 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

--
I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it
in mind.
Twitter: @andreaglorioso
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