IDEA Blog

Welcoming Remarks: Aspen IDEA plenary meeting, Washington, D.C.

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:11:00 -0400

Aspen IDEA Chairman Reed Hundt kicks off the fourth and final plenary session today:

The goal of the forum was to dedicate two years to a multistakeholder process intended to design a strong governance system that would ensure a single global Internet, a single global digital economy. Specifically, we wanted to help the Internet wrap around the world a common medium through which economic and human rights would be securely, fairly, openly, freely exercised. Then we went to foundations to obtain the funding for multiple plenaries, which eventually were held in Washington, Los Angeles, Brussels, and now back here for the concluding meeting. These plenaries were snowballs that kept growing, as we added numerous European firms and NGOs from other continents to our forum.

Continue reading at http://as.pn/a1

The Chongqing Censorship-Free Cloud Development Zone

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:58:02 -0400

China’s First Internet Governance Special Administrative Region (SAR)

By: Melanie Hart

The Chongqing municipal government is building a cloud development zone that reportedly will be completely disconnected from China’s national network and China’s great censorship firewall. The ‘International Offshore Cloud Computing Special Administrative Region (SAR)’ is designed to attract off-shore data processing centers. It will be located in Chongqing’s Liang Jiang Special Development Zone, and it will connect directly to the international network via a special optical cable that will run through Dalian or Shanghai.

To encourage foreign investment, China’s normal ICT regulations will not apply. Foreign enterprises can own up to a 100% stake in the companies operating within the zone, and FIEs can obtain telecommunications and data processing licenses. Data can flow across the Chinese border into and out of the zone without passing through China’s normal data inspection process (though Chinese authorities retain the right to conduct “sampling”).

Security will be strict. The zone will be surrounded by a physical barrier of some sort, and Chinese personnel working within the zone must obtain a special security clearance. The on-shore and off-shore processing centers will be completely separate from one another. The Chinese journalists who broke the story claim that trying to enter the off-shore processing zone “would basically be like trying to break into the White House.”

Singapore’s Pacific Telecommunications is investing around $23 million to build an offshore data processing center in the zone. The China International Electronic Commerce Center (affiliated with China’s Ministry of Commerce) is building a $240 million facility, and local officials claim that Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Equinix have also expressed interest.

Cisco CEO John Chambers is serving an official advisory role for the project, as Counsel of International Economics to the Mayor of Chongqing.

This is a local government initiative. Chongqing officials cooked up the plan and used two key arguments to get Beijing on board:

Cloud computing is the next big thing in ICT, and data processing will be the fastest growing cloud market. The US and the EU will be outsourcing more data processing to Asia, but China is currently unattractive due to its cross-border data restrictions and censorship controls. If China does not relax those policies, India and other Asian competitors will continue to dominate this market and China will be left out of the game completely.
The Chongqing Liangjiang Special Development Zone is the third such zone in China (after Shanghai’s Pudong and Tianjin’s Binhai). As a Western region, Chongqing missed out on the first wave of economic growth and therefore deserves special development support. Since the Shanghai and Tianjin development zones have such a head start, it will be impossible for Chongqing to catch up without special policies.

This lobbying effort succeeded because Bo Xilai was at the helm. Bo Xilai is the ambitious Party secretary of Chongqing and the son of Bo Yibo, a first-generation CCP leader. Before his Chongqing Party post, Bo Xilai served as China’s national commerce minister, so the project had strong commerce support from the beginning (and its first major investor, the $240 million China International Electronic Commerce facility mentioned above).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out vis-à-vis China’s other cloud development zones. In October 2010, the central government set up cloud computing test regions in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Wuxi. Those five regions have their own cloud development programs, and those programs will likely lobby for the same special policies.

China’s Southern Weekend broke the story in June, and the reporters based their exposé on multiple interviews with Chongqing officials. Based on the fact that these officials willingly provided this information, it appears that the local government wanted this story to get out. The Chongqing government received formal approval for the project in April 2011, but elements of the plan may still be facing internal opposition. If so, leaking the plan will make it harder for the center to backtrack and revoke approval.

It will also be interesting to see how this will play out with the Chinese public. The news triggered intense discussion and at least some public anger. Some Chinese netizens view the project as a throw-back to the old two-tier economic system, where foreigners received special treatment and foreign communities were off-limits to regular Chinese. The news also raises sensitive questions about Chinese internet censorship in general.

The Southern Weekend piece has been removed from the journal’s website, and this topic is now off-limits in China.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says modern states should not restrict Internet freedoms

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:54:13 -0400

Putin makes it clear that the government is capable of limiting internet freedoms but suggests that it would be morally wrong do to so. Read more here.

BART Cuts Cell Service--Is it Legal?

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:21:00 -0400

Public interest groups are questioning the legality of the decision by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) to shut down wireless services at four stations to help dispel a ‘flash’ protest. The FCC has been asked to look into the issue. Read more about the situation in the Bay Area and the Petition for Declaratory Ruling at the FCC.

Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly?

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:01:51 -0400

This thought provoking article calls into question the role of government in maintaining order among the people. Where do we draw the line between preserving our inalienable rights and ensuring safety of our citizenry? http://bit.ly/q89KAe

Instead of cutting off social media, engage in our IDEA

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:10:00 -0400

The news is that Prime Minister Cameron is considering curtailing social media, including Facebook and Twitter, in response to rioting in London and other cities. It’s a shock to think that he might unwittingly want to be compared to the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. However, perhaps we can constructively consider the PM’s impulse — which runs contrary to Secretary of State’s diplomatic agenda for authoritarian countries, of which the U.K. clearly isn’t one — as still another indicator of the need for our IDEA forum to develop in a multi-stakeholder process ways to anticipate and plan coordinated responses to social upheaval.

To read more about the responses to the Prime Minister’s statements, click here, and here.

Worth a read

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:34:00 -0400

Ambassador Karen Kornbluh and Daniel J. Weitzner published a great piece last week in the Washington Post on the Foreign Policy of the Internet, which I highly recommend. Another interesting read, French Policy-Making Approach Inconsistent with OECD Principles, by Anne-Claire Jamart and Emma Llanso, also came out last week.

Two decades of the web

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:05:00 -0400

The internet is constantly changing along with the way we interact with the net. See the article below and post your comments here: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/06/morozov-web-no-utopia-twenty-years-short-history-internet/

The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:04:00 -0400

IDEA Chairman Reed Hundt speech gave a speech at the June 29, 2011 OECD High Level Meeting entitled “The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth”, in Paris, France. The aim of the High Level meeting was to reach a consensus on how best to ensure the continued growth and innovation of the Internet economy.

Read it at Talking Points Memo.

A New Principle of International Law: The Internet Is a Common Medium

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:50:00 -0400

Aspen IDEA Project Chairman Reed Hundt published an op-ed today:

The Internet should have no borders. So did Secretary of State Clinton in effect declare in a major speech on February 15. This is the most dramatic and far-reaching linkage of information technology and statecraft in history. It is an extension, and a fulfillment, of the original vision of the Internet as a force for eradicating poverty and spreading democracy.

Continue reading at Talking Points Memo

Keep the Worldwide Net Open

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Aspen IDEA Project Chairman Reed Hundt and Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program Executive Director Charlie Firestone wrote an op-ed published at Talking Points Memo which introduces the IDEA Project.

Read it at Talking Points Memo

Introducing the Aspen IDEA Project

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The Aspen IDEA Project is a multi-stakeholder process aimed at reassessing the existing institutions and norms that govern the global Internet. The Project’s goal is to identify ways to promote innovation and market access opportunities through a single global digital market for goods, services and ideas, facilitate the free flow of communications across borders on a robust common global medium, and preserve a trusted environment respecting security, privacy and intellectual property.

Learn more at http://www.aspeninstitute.org/idea