Assistant Secretary of Commerce in US responsible for communications and information policy and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Larry Strickling had been in Istanbul to join the Forum for Transport, Maritime and Communication Mnistry. We have been talked in a short interview with this important administrator about Internet governance and future for the turk-internet.com visitors.
- Find the 1st part of this interview at Strickling : ICANN’in İstanbul’da Ofis Açması İstanbul’un Önemli Bir Kesişim Noktası Olduğunun İspatı Olarak Görülmeli – 1
- Find the Turkish translation of this part at Strickling : İnternet’in Yönetimi Konusunda Çok Paydaşlı Bir Yönetimi Destekliyoruz – 2
We are publishing the rest of the interview below
turk-internet.com: Larry, all the world is having discussions about internet governance for quite some time. And also the revenues of OTT companies are subjects of discussion. What is US view in these matters?
Lawrence Strickling: Well, with respect to internet governance, we strongly favor the multistakeholder model of governance and by that I mean a process that involves not just governments but also businesses, civil society and academics… anyone really in participating in these discussions. And more importantly be involved in the actual decision making. So we talked about a minute ago about ICANN which is an example of a multistakeholder organization. Anybody by simply coming to the meetings can participate as a same level as anyone else at these meetings. There is no difference you know, just because you’re from government doesn’t give you a greater say than somebody from the business. And also somebody from the business doesn’t have a greater say than somebody form civil society. Everyone is equal in these discussions.
And this is also the history of the internet. The internet is grown and developed through the use of these multistakeholder processes. So when we look at the history we say “this worked really really well” and we don’t want to jeopardize what has lead to the explosion of economic growth and job creation and wealth creation on the internet. So, form the point of view of the US, we like to see internet policy issues resolve through the multistakeholder process which brings creative ideas form anybody into the discussions. And we think that allows decisions to be made more quickly, made more flexibly, made more to the respond to the immediate issues as opposed to proceeding perhaps run by governments that takes years to resolve and by the time the problem is solved, the problem doesn’t even exist any longer because the technology is changing so quickly.
So we are very supportive of the organizations like ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force. And we’d like to see to that extent that these new issues are emerging and they don’t have a multistakeholder process. Perhaps we need to create some new processes that can engage the rest of the world, in all parts of the world, in solving these problems.
turk-internet.com: You told about your suggestions regarding the internet governance. I’ll ask you what will be happening then? What will we see in internet next in near or far future?
Lawrence Strickling: I am confident that I don’t know. The internet has changed so fast and has brought such an amazing innovations that I think for any of us was to predict what’s going to happen just show us how silly we might be. So I wouldn’t even hesitate to guess on something like that I am sure all of us will be suprized. But look at the changes of the last 10 years. How many people would have predicted Facebook will be reaching many millions of subscribers or users.
turk-internet.com: And it changes the governments like we see in Arab Spring. It is incredible and amazing…
Lawrence Strickling: So problem with predicting the future is all we can go on is the past and I think the beauty of internet is that it allows people to come forward with ideas that haven’t been in the past. S I wouldn’t even try to predict.
turk-internet.com: Thank you so much, that was all the questions I’d like to ask. Would you like to add anything?
Lawrence Strickling: No, just that I’ve enjoyed the conversation and good luck to you.
Lawrance Strickling – Internet and Turkey from Noete.com on Vimeo.
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