Internet and Democracy (Revised version)

Wikipedia told me that democracy can assume many different forms around the globe. However, at first the very word democracy brings to mind ideas of equality and freedom. What does the internet mean as far these notions of freedom and equality are concerned? Is it in anyway enhancing or eroding these values?

To begin with consider this blog. The very fact that I am able to express my views freely and that these views are accessible by you, the reader, implies that the internet promotes the freedom of thought, speech and expression. It is so vast that there appears to be infinite “virtual” space for everyone to speak out and be heard. However, in a democracy, the regulation of piracy and the implementation of copyright laws are important. The recent debates over file sharing software and the digitizing of libraries lead us to believe that the internet is still grappling with the implementation of anti-piracy and copyright laws. In my opinion the main “problem” with the internet is the fact that it is still evolving. For instance, in the physical world social norms, defining the “acceptable”, give the boundaries within which people can exercise their freedom of speech and expression. Since such norms are still being developed in cyberspace, to some extent we are safe in assuming that these freedoms can be misused in the virtual world.

The internet promotes equality because it does not discriminate between users while providing information. All internet users have equal opportunity to be both creators and consumers of information. Bimber’s research indicates that the internet brings down barriers related to the availability of resources and organizations with different levels of funding can compete with one another. Nevertheless, the emerging digital divide is causing yet another chasm between people. As Bimber pointed out, while referring to the use of internet by political parties during elections, cyberspace leads to differences among the more and the less engaged people. I’m not certain though whether in democracy, citizens should be equal in terms of the knowledge they possess. With the world now recognizing knowledge as capital, I wonder whether democracies should strive to provide equal access to knowledge among its citizens. The internet plays a dual role in this respect.

As the readings suggest the internet can be used effectively to enhance participation in the government, through online voting, discussion forums, online opinion polls etc. This is the most important democratic value that the internet best promotes. With website like meetup.com, the freedom of association is better utilized as they bring people with similar beliefs together.

I believe that the internet is a very effective tool that can be used to promote democratic values. However, it needs to evolve further in order to overcome the shortcomings.

Getting Googled!

I started out with the rather simple exercise of locating my home on Google Earth. There were no real surprises with this feature perhaps because we have come to accept and now expect this new software to provide us with locational information. My next task was to gather from the internet as much information as possible about three people I know from different generations. I picked my high school friend, my school teacher and a distant relative as “the subjects of my research”. It is amazing how much the internet can reveal about people. For instance, I learned that my friend had participated in the Oracle Think Quest challenge in 11th grade, had represented his university at an international debate competition earning 677 points and had received an A+ and an A on recent projects! For all those who want help on computer science projects, feel free to contact him - his email id is available on an msn group site. It is possible that my friend uses the internet extensively and in turn leaves “trails” of information because he wanted to “network” with other people. Finding similar information about my teacher was more difficult. I could locate some newspaper interviews and seminars where she had participated. Interestingly her contact details are available online on a jobs website through which my school was hiring teachers for the Montessori section. Internet told me that my teacher is a doctorate in chemistry with a Bachelor’s Degree in education and a certificate in Strategic Planning for Institutional Development from Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad). From a couple of other quick searches I concluded that information about a person irrespective of his/her age is “placed” on the internet primarily by 1) public- other people publish information- especially if this person is famous-this also includes interviews etc 2) institutions – like my friend’s instructor made his grades available online, university web sites normally have a public directory and lastly, 3) by the person through online groups, discussion boards, blogs etc. For instance, we are unlikely to find substantial information about an old person who is not particularly famous, is not very active on the internet and no institution has published information regarding his/ her current/past work. On the contrary, the internet holds a lot of information about my 74 year old relative because he is really famous and numerous institutions he is associated with have published information about him. I even found a paper describing him, his ancestors and the professions of his three daughters! Conclusion: The internet is a dangerous playground because students can get assignments where you might be the subject of their research!!!

Term Paper Prospectus

We Know Where You Are: 35.407N, 66.743W!

- An analysis of the social, legislative and
economic implications of Location Based Services.


Dear Reader

On this beautiful sunny day, I do not wish to earn your wrath by repeating all that I have said before (by boring you and in the process damaging the interest kindled thus far in this wonderful topic). So here’s the second half of the story and the precise points about my term paper:

Term Paper Overview and its Scope:

The past years have witnessed the evolution of several interesting technologies that obtain, process, utilize and publish locational information. Satellites and wireless networks are extensively used to seek such information. Novel services like Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth provide a platform for consumers to “pull” information while service providers like Orange take advantage by “push”ing information onto the users. In the term paper I wish to first explore the technologies involved in providing location based services.

The next logical step is to analyze the impact that these technologies have on our society at large. Undoubtedly, they add tremendous utility and economic value to their users. However, issues of privacy and national security are still abounding. We often wonder how serious these problems of privacy actually are. Are these just “perceived problems” which do not exist in reality because of a conscious choice that the consumers have exercised in the trade-off between utility and privacy? Or on the contrary, are they so profound that an average unwary consumer does not even realize that his/her privacy is being encroached upon by a seemingly harmless technology?

In this context, it is interesting to study the regulatory measures adopted by the governing bodies. While I will primarily focus on USA, time permitting I shall also compare the policies in other regions like Asia-Pacific. Are these regulations effective in implementing their goals? Most regulations are not without their own “side-effects”. How do these regulatory measures hinder or promote the adaptation of technologies? To conclude, I will present my personal views on how the policies and regulations can shape themselves in a rapidly transforming technological environment.


Sources:

The primary sources will include discussions with faculty, interaction with people from industry and a survey using a personally administered questionnaire, conducted in a developed (USA) and a developing country (India). Published material including magazines, journals, newspaper reports and World Wide Web constitute the secondary sources.


Proposed Milestones:

15 Nov : design of questionnaire

1 Dec : identification of sources and fixing appointments with peers and faculty

10 Dec : deadline for data collection from USA

10 – 17 Dec : consolidation of data collected in USA

17 – 31 Dec : collection of information from sources in India

1- 8 Jan : consolidation of data collected in India

10-16 Jan : preparation of final report

17 Jan : submission of report

Collection of information from secondary sources is an ongoing process and will continue until 10th Jan

DMCA & IPR

At first sight the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,1998 seemed to be a piece of simple innocuous legal ruling that earnestly sought to protect the rights of the copyright owners. I was amazed upon reading the summary that most “service providers” are very easily classified into four simple categories: those providing Transitory Communications, System Caching, Storage of Information on systems or networks at the direction of users and lastly, the services that help to locate information. On reading about the unintended impact of the DMCA, it was shocking that a simple statement that renders it illegal to make or sell a device or service used to circumvent technological measures adopted by authors, can have such far reaching effects as not allowing students and scientists to present papers or “repelling” foreign scientists. Perhaps, it might be too extreme a step to dismiss the entire Act because of some intended impact of a clause. I believe that while the efforts of the authors and the owners of copyright must be preserved, in the current cyberspace regime which is increasingly being propelled into an “information for all” zone, perhaps a small fee subscription based service would result in a win-win situation. As the article in the Wired magazine suggests, ideally we should look at harnessing peer to peer file sharing software like BitTorrent through a model that’s legally correct in order to increase the power of cyberspace. However, upon reading the articles I began to wonder why some works like books and music are copyright and are pay-for – use while still others like blogs are free. A striking similarity between books and blogs seems to be that both are expressions of the author’s mind and thoughts. Another question that arose in my mind was the purpose behind the Google Print initiative. If entire book cannot be viewed online and only excerpts are displayed, how does it help a user to know that the information he/she desires lies in some book thousands of miles away? A word about Google Print. If Google shares advertising revenues with its “publishing partners” the web properties that display its ads, then perhaps it can consider a model by which it shares the advertising revenue with the copyright owners. It would perhaps result in online books with target advertisements- welcome to the next generation digital public library!!!

Essential Vitamins & Minerals: Iron, Calcium, Vit A, Vit B, Vit T (technology!!!),...

I’m not sure who was the first to equate technology to vitamins and minerals, but its validity cannot be denied. IT- it’s as essential for us as the vital nutrients themselves; I discovered this as I logged my use of Information & Communication technology on Saturday.

Day: Saturday – for some of us it may not qualify as a “weekday”, but it’s still a day of the week!! (My friends from FRS 127 will understand the purpose of this statement better.)

8:27 am – I received a call from my dad, who is half way across the world, on my cell phone & we decided that each of us would log onto msn messenger / Skype at 11:30am. This call lasted for about 3 min.

9:32 am – I went through the usual routine of booting my system and a part of the initial process every morning also includes checking an ever increasing list of websites including hotmail.com, mail.yahoo.com, gmail.google.com, my university mail account, facebook.com, a national news website from my home country, and finally, a couple of internal university academic websites!!
This took me only half an hour, since I skim the news headlines and partly because, on this particular day, no one thought it was necessary to send me an email.

11:30am – MSN Messenger and Skype connected me to my family. We had a voice conference, with my aunt and cousins from distant places joining in. It seemed like a short time, but it went on for 45min.

2:15 pm – I checked my email again and visited a couple of websites to obtain information for a meeting at 3pm.

5:05 pm – Coming out of the meeting, I realized that someone had left a voice mail message on my cell phone.

6:37 pm – A routine check of emails received and the course web sites.

6:47 pm – I spoke to my friend at another university for 10min (via my cell phone)

11:09 pm – Another routine email check , which was followed by a couple of conversations with my friends on MSN messenger.

Topic for my Term Paper (its more fun than this title may suggest!!)

We Know Where You Are: 35.407N, 66.743W!*

- An analysis of the social, legislative and
economic implications of Location Based Services.

Earlier this year Google launched its all-new product Google Earth.( http://earth.google.com/). I still remember the exciting summer evening, two months ago, when I downloaded it and tried to locate my future dorm, half way across the world. Recently, Microsoft also released a beta version of its product called Microsoft Virtual Earth.( http://virtualearth.msn.com). It incorporates an additional feature called LocateMe, whereby users can allow the software to locate them using their IP addresses or via the wireless net. With these maps users can locate nearby restaurants, museums etc. Wait…technology has more to offer. A few years ago Orange decided to offer location based services to its customers in Switzerland. So the next time you drive through an unfamiliar neighborhood, your mobile device (a.k.a. phone) will alert you about the nearby restaurants, which serve your favorite food. (http://www.wirelessdevnet.com/news/2002/280/news2.html)

The key to a plethora of applications and services arises from positional information – where are you, the user? This can be achieved using Global Positioning Systems, via the cellular networks etc. Once an organization has your locational information at any given time, it can use this information in many different ways. In an emergency, knowing a person’s position can aid rescue operations. Such positional information can be superimposed on maps, to track movement or simply to provide you more information about the locality. So, isn’t this a good feature, offering help and information at your doorstep (/rather, footstep)?

However, knowing someone’s location may cause many social problems. For instance, many times someone might be at a place where they are not supposed to be and with other people knowing their position, it raises some questions. What if organizations, that seek such information, do so without your knowledge and use it for other purposes? Isn’t this an infringement of your privacy? Are there any laws to restrict the access and the utilization of such information? Recently, questions have been raised about the publishing of sensitive defense information over Google Earth. This issue can also metamorphose into one of national security, with the global nature of the internet making the problem more complex. Another interesting angle to this saga is the economics. One website, http://www.openwave.com/us/openwave_iq/inside_the_wave/2005/august/flytxt.htm, estimates that $177 million dollars have been spent in Japan on mobile advertising in a singe year (2004)- a whopping 77% increase from the previous year!!
Through my term paper, I will seek to answer the questions raised above and analyze the impact of location based services on society, the legislations that are in place, the privacy issues to be dealt with and the economics. Currently my topic is quite broad and general, because there appear to be many interrelated problems. Being an emerging technology, some of these problems are still in the process of being solved and this makes it a very interesting case for the term paper. Besides, it’s crucial to harness our knowledge of the internet of the past to analyse the cyberspace of the future. With location based services set to be the “next big thing” in cyberspace; its study assumes paramount importance.

*- that’s definitely not my position!!!

(continued)...

I guess my first post was rather brief, so here’s a more complete version of my thoughts…
Although I have been using the internet extensively during the past years, it was only after I read the book by Lessig that I actually realized its true nature. Cyberspace is in fact a new world that human kind has created and the need of the hour is to create laws & lend a “structure” to this world. However, is this really the “need of the hour”? Wouldn’t this new world evolve in any case and assume some form? In my opinion, this question is difficult to answer because all the three processes of legislation, evolution and change seem to be occurring simultaneously. This makes the study of cyberspace and its impact on society all the more exciting.
Lessig discusses some very interesting problems arising from the basic nature of the internet. His example of the gambling industry gives the reader a very good overview of the problems relating to internet and globalization. I enjoyed the story of Martha Jones and her neighbour, which he uses to compare the “real world” and “Avatar space”. I was reminded of a program on Cartoon Network that I used to watch as a kid. It involved people who wore virtual reality glasses and escaped into a virtual world. Incidentally, in this program the activities of those people in the virtual space affected their lives in the real world! Indirectly, this principle might apply to cyberspace. This increases the need for better security and privacy, while preserving freedom. Lessig points out that architecture and code form the basis for regulation in cyberspace. I definitely agree with his views. If code is the creator of cyberspace, then definitely through code we can regulate it. However, I disagree with the terminology – “East Coast Code” and “West Coast Code”. Perhaps this was true in 1999 when he wrote the book. To my mind, these terms seem irrelevant today. This is simply because internet and IT are global phenomena, no longer restricted to the US. Code is developed in places other than the West Coast and similarly, we need to have legislation that is applicable to the internet community as a whole, not divided by the physical borders of each country.
Speaking of legislation, it was interesting to browse some of the websites of organizations that are campaigning to create awareness about the laws. While some organizations focus almost exclusively on freedom of speech and information, others address a wider range of issues consumer privacy, broadband, encryption etc. These organizations also seem to have different aims- some seek to merely inform the public, while others appear to take a certain stance on issues. Security and privacy are the key areas of concern. Having read the material posted on the websites, I wouldn’t like to believe that data transmitted over the internet can be deemed secure. I realize that economics also plays a vital role in shaping the technologies we use and the policies that govern it. If it is not a win-win situation for all, free wi-fi in our towns and cities may never see the light of the day. However, there are many of us who study engineering and technology with a strong belief that eventually the fantastic applications of technology will overshadow the problems and concerns. With all its promises and perils the cyberspace is undoubtedly an integral part of our daily lives and will continue to remain that way, but only till some other disruptive technology comes along. In the digital world, change is the only constant!!