IGF 2008: Event Report on Workshop No.20
Governance for gatekeepers – shaping access to the Internet
Thursday 4 December, 09:30 to 11:00, Room 7, Hyderabad, India
About the workshop:
Internet users increasingly rely upon gatekeepers (e.g. news portals, search engines etc, which act in various ways to filter access to information) to access content and services which facilitate the way we communicate, work, learn and research and entertain ourselves.
They have become a vital door for the public’s everyday activities. They are evolving as organic tools for navigating web content. The range and number of popular gateways is shrinking as market forces make the powerful engines even more powerful.
Aims and objectives of the workshop:
The overall aims of the workshop were to better understand the control and influence that gatekeepers can have over the way we access, search, select and use of content, and to consider how they are (self-) governed, how they are (ethical) responsible and transparent in their operations.
The objectives of the workshop were to consider who these gatekeepers are, to examine how they assist and facilitate access, search, selection and use of content, and to assess the benefits and risks to users (e.g. with regard to free choice, consumer protection, harmful content and free speech, etc).
Key questions included:
- Who shapes access to the Internet, by which means, and is it fundamentally different to how we access content and services in the offline world
- What are the risks and benefits to users?
- How to enhance the benefits and mitigate the risks to users? Is there is a need for measures to ensure that there is no monopoly over access? Should alternative gate keeping tools be made available, and is the public is aware of all the implications of its choices?
Key speakers and presentations at the workshop:
· Khalid Hadadi, BBC EU and International Policy
· Ang Peng Hwa, Singapore Internet Research Centre
· Mr Alexandre Jobim Kruel, AIB-AIR/WBU
· Marco Pancini, European policy counsel, Google
· Murali Shanmugavelan, Panos, UK,
· Thomas Schneider, Ofcom, Switzerland
· Alex Shulzycki, World Broadcasting Union
· Qusai Al Shatti, Kuwait Information Technology Society
Moderator: Jonathan Charles, BBC World
Points of discussion, challenges and conclusions:
· Media and content concentration happens not only in the traditional media, but also in the online world:
- traditional media companies and online services merge into vertical companies that offer content as well as other internet services
- although more voices are speaking, fewer voices are listened to: although the number of websites is constantly increasing, most of the traffic is concentrating on a decreasing number of websites:
- some private companies and services have very high market shares and therefore a monopolist or quasi-monopolist
· Transparent vs. secret business models: -
Non commercial and Public “gatekeepers” like the BBC normally reveal their principles of how they manage its content. For commercial gatekeepers (i.e.private content and service providers), the way they process and distribute information is part of their business model and therefore normally not revealed. This can create conflicts with the public interest that their content and services generate.
· Differences between national regulations have an influence on how people access information and services:
Gatekeepers can be forced to filter and shape content differently by different governments. As a result, the same services can provide different results in different countries.
In many countries, national websites are more controlled than “foreign” websites. If users have access to global websites, the can circumvent national restrictions and limitations.
These different national legislations can cause troubles to globally operating companies and service providers.
· Users can also shape other users’ access to information and services: For example in some countries, users are organized and paid for the mass creation of content in favour of the government in order to “drown” other content more critical to a government and thus make it more difficult for other users to locate critical content and information
Recommendations:
- More awareness on the role of the different gatekeepers has to be raised.
- Companies operating in different countries have an interest in globally harmonized regulatory framework.
- Whereas, in democratic countries, it is rather easy to develop rules and create transparency for non commercial gatekeepers, it is much more difficult to regulate private commercial gatekeepers that work in a market environment. Competition regulation should enable new competitors to enter a market and come up with innovative services. However, it has to be kept in mind that, no matter how you regulate competition, you can not force private actors to become creative.
- There is a need for self- and co-regulatory mechanisms like codes of conduct, guiding principles
- Incentives should be created that private gatekeepers become aware of their responsibility and act accordingly.
- There should be ways to enforce these principles, for example by developing complaints bodies and other mechanisms