PCNA 2006: IP is a social contract

Submitted by acohill on Sat, 02/25/2006 - 10:55

Garth Graham is the visionary leader behind Telecommunities Canada; Graham has been thinking about communities and technology longer and with more clarity than most of us, and when Garth talks, I try to shut up and listen. In the hallway between PCNA sessions, I made a casual statement about how "technology is a tool." It's an innocuous phrase that has been uttered by millions of technocrats at one time or another.

But Graham looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Andrew, I have to disagree with you. IP is a social contract, not a tool."

The instant he said it, I knew it was true, and I realized I had missed an important piece of the puzzle. IP (Internet Protocol) is a relatively simple set of rules used by all the individual networks that comprise the "Internet." The IP rules work only because individual network operators have informally agreed to abide by them for the last twenty years or so--an informal social contract.

The alarming proposals for a multi-tiered Internet discard that social contract and replace it with business contracts between network access providers and content providers. Content users are left out completely.

As Garth said, "We can't let this happen." I agree.