Conclusions for day 2
Javier de la Cueva, Lawyer.

All the debate around Net Neutrality and the right to be forgotten is about a new container — the Internet and all new technologies at large — and a new container — digital content and services.

And what this container is asking us is to feed is for ourselves, for free and providing personal data in exchange.

And not only are these data consciously provided, by uploading content, of befriending people on 3rd parties’ platforms, but also in a hidden form, by means of cookies, scripts or other devices.

There still is an unanswered question and it is whether technology as an ideology. And the Law should deal with this issue explicitly and bravely. This includes code, that in some aspects is becoming a derivative or procedural law.

And not only whether technology conforms an ideology, but also whether it conforms a new 4th generation of human rights.

An interesting question to explore in the future is whether we can proceed with the concept of habeas data.

We are now fighting the inefficacy of Law, that always arrives late at regulating and, when it does, there are hackers and crackers (conceptually very different) that make many laws irrelevant in practice. Thus, we need global solutions, founded on the Philosophy of Law and Law Theory, so to provide solid and long-lasting frameworks.

More information

• Relato del VII Congreso Internacional sobre Internet, Derecho y Política: Neutralidad de la red y derecho al olvido, by Javier de la Cueva

Track on e-government and e-democracy
Chairs: Ismael Peña-López, Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC)

Lorenzo Cotino Hueso
The European electronic citizen initiative

The new European normative makes it possible that with the addition of 1,000,000 signatures, the political debate on a certain topic can be initiated in the European Parliament. And one of the good things about this new normative is that it has been designed for the XXIst century, as online participation (i.e. signing) is considered in equal terms as offline participation.

The procedure is the usual one, where an initiative is registered and then signatures are collected within the member states. Once the European Commission validates the firms (the person signing is a European citizen, has not signed more than one time, etc.), then a new legislative process can begin.

Another asset is that the European Commission must provide free software platforms for the collection of signatures in any website. These platforms will work with digital signature, whatever its kind: certificates, tokens, smartphones, etc.

The initiative can be started at any member state and, once the platform is validated, the process of gathering support can begin.

The regulation is written as if it was about data protection, as that is the major issue when providing a (electronic) vote supplying personal data, but the regulation to be applied will be the one of any member state.

Daniel Guagnin; Carla Ilten
Self-Governed Socio-technical Infrastructures. Autonomy and Cooperation through Free Software and Community Wireless Networks

Net Neutrality is the freedom to use a communication infrastructure in all possible ways without constrains. And free software is a matter of liberty, not price, it is about free as in free speech (not as in free beer).

Technology is society made durable: social “programmes” are inscribed in any technology. In expert systems rules are disembedded from the realm of use, and defined by experts. Free software opens up the experitse to laypeople, why proprietary software stays opaque.

Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work freely available and with the compulsory condition that any other work based on it will also be available in the same way.

Community Wireless Networks are based on free software and DIY hardware. They use wireless peer-to-peer mesh network architecture and have collectively organized and owned communication infrastructures.

An example can be the Chicago Wireless Community Networks [in Spain we have the very interesting initiative Guifi.net.]. Chicago Wireless Community Networks is a non-profit project to serve disadvantaged neighborhoods, in cooperation with CUWIN open source programmers. It’s community building through network set-up and maintenance. The Pico Peering Agreement acts as a constitution for peer networking.

That is certainly a new approach to Net Neutrality, as Net Neutrality is, all in all, a battle about the control over infrastructures.

Mayo Fuster Morell
An introductory historical contextualization of online creation communities for the building of digital commons: The emergence of a free culture movement

Online creation communities (OCCs) are a set of individuals that communicate and collaborate mainly via a platform hosted on the Internet with the purpose to create a final outcome of the joint work.

These communities are deeply rooted in the movements of the 1950s like hacking culture, hippies contraculture, action-participation methodologies and popular education, etc.

If the free software projects imply the appearance of OCCs, there is a shift from free software to free culture with the change of millennium with movements like the Creative Commons, the Wikipedia, alternative news media (e.g. Indymedia), peer-to-peer file sharing, open access of scientific research, etc. The explosion of the web 2.0 is greatly powered and fostering at the same time the concept of OCCs.

Infrasctructure conditions:

• Level of freedom and autonomy of the content generators in regard to the infrastructure.
• Level representation of the interests of the community of creators in the infrastructure provision decision-making and provision transparency.

Two main types:

• Autonomy + open = commons logic; they reinforce more collaborative communities.
• Close + dependency = corporate logic. Tend to generate larger communities.

The free culture and digital rights movement has 4 main goals: preserve the digital commons, to make important information available to the public, promote creators, remove barriers to distribution of knowledge and goods.

Lately, the movement has been shifting from free culture to meta-politics. This can be seen in the Change Congress initiative in the US (2008) or the #nolesvotes and #15M movements in Spain.

Georgia Foteinou
Institutional Trust and e-Government Adoption in the EU: a Cross-National Analysis

Why citizens that are used to e-commerce appear sceptic when it comes to using e-government websites? Normally, it is attributed to the poor quality of services, few available services, insufficient infrastructure… but evidence shows that is none of the above, at least not as a strong determinant not to be using those services. In fact, e-government usage is higher than e-commerce in most European countries, even if it has a decline of -4.5% (of all Internet users) over the period 2005-2010. On the other hand, in aggregate, e-government is growing at 30% (accesses) while e-commerce is growing at 75%.

It seems that the digitally reluctant could not be trusting the government, but not of a specific agent, but in government as a whole. This is what data seem to be telling at statistically significant levels.

Jorge Luis Salcedo
Conflicts about the regulation of intellectual property in Internet: comparing the issue networks in UK and Spain

In the issue of the conflicts about the regulation of intellectual property, how is media visibility distributed between the stakeholders in this conflict? What actors have more visibility? This is crucially relevant in mass-mediated democracies.

A first hypothesis is that the regulation supporters (Copyrights coalition and governments) will achieve a greater visibility level on the news channel.

A second hypothesis is that the Digital Rights Activists (DRA) will have a higher visibility on non traditional media (blogs, websites) than the CRC.

3r hypothesis: DRA will have a higher visibility in specific web channels, but not on the entire web.

4th hypothesis: The most visible agents on the news channels are going to get the most visibility as a whole, especially in search engines.

It is very interesting to see how in Spain, DRA have huge coverage in online platforms, in the UK they are even with CRC and both of them having less visibility than the government’s official position. In search engines, though, both UK and Spanish DRA seem to be having the same impact.

The differences may come from different resources from the different stakeholders, a more lax regulation in the UK in downloading matters, the worst reputation that the coalition has in Spain in comparison to the UK’s, including the dynamics of politics in the different countries.

Track on the Right to be forgotten, data protection and privacy
Chairs: Mònica Vilasau Solana, Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC)

Pere Simon Castellano
The constitutional regime of the right to oblivion in the Internet

It is the principle of consent the one that gives us the legitimacy to claim for a right to privacy or data protection.

Especially related to search engines (though not only) is the legality of a given content another important factor when claiming for our privacy rights or the right to be forgotten.

Jelena Burnik
Behavioural advertising in electronic communications. A benefit to electronic communication development and an intrusion of individual’s right to privacy and data protection

Behavioural advertising tracks Internet users’ activities online and delivers only relevant advertisements, based on the data collected and analysed over a given period of time. It is normally enabled by cookies, that are placed by websites or advertisements on websites.

Behavioural advertising is defended in the name of relevance of advertisements, enhanced user experience, precise segmentation and less money spent on non-relevant audiences, support to free Internet content and a driver of innovation.

But it is a controversial practice that requires a fair balance between the interests of the industry and the rights of individuals. As cookies assign a unique ID with an IP address, there can be concerns on data protection. On the other hand, cookies are normally placed in the computer by default, while maybe a debate on opt-in vs. opt-out of cookie placing and cookie-based tracking should be considered.

A new “cookie” European directive should aim at shifting from an opt-out principle to an opt-in one, and cookies being placed only under explicit user’s concern. But how is the technological solution for an opt-in cookie principle?

In the US, though, what seems to be more acknowledged is an enhanced opt-out model.

But only true opt-in provides for transparency, and self-regulation of the industry will not suffice.

María Concepción Torres Diaz
Privacy and tracking cookies. A constitutional approach.

It is worth noting the difference between privacy, intimacy and personal data. And cookies can harm privacy. So, users should get all necessary information on cookies and tracking so they can decide whether a specific behaviour puts at stake their privacy. In case the user decides to go on, explicit consent should be provided to the service to perform its tracking activity.

We have to acknowledge that new technologies will bring with them new rights and new threats to old rights. Thus, we should be aware of the new technologies so that the law does not fall behind.

Philipp E. Fischer; Rafael Ferraz Vazquez
Data transfer from Germany or Spain to third countries – Questions of civil liability for privacy rights infringement

There are data transfers at the international level continuously. If those data got “lost”, the operator might have incurred in privacy rights infringement.

The European Directive on data transmission, it has been established that there can be data transmission within the European Union (nationally or internationally) or with 3rd countries with adequate level of data protection. There still are some issues with the US and there are other countries which are simply banned from data transmission between them and member states.

Faye Fangfei Wang
Legal Feasibility for Statistical Methods on Internet as a Source of Data Gathering in the EU

Privacy protection steps: suitable safeguards, duty to inform prior to obtaining consent (transparency), consent, and enforcement. Request for concern should be looked at as a very important step towards privacy protection. Consent must be freely given and informed.

There is an exemption clause in the UK legislation, to be used when gathering some data is strictly necessary for a service to run, or for scientific purposes, etc. But the exception clause must be used legally.

Ricardo Morte Ferrer
The ADAMS database of the Anti Doping World Agency. Data protection problems

The ADAMS database stores whereabouts, reporting where a sportsman is during 3 months, for a daily time span from 6:00 to 23:00 and including a full daily 1h detailed report of their whereabouts. Instead of presuming innocence, this database kind of presumes guiltiness.

That is a lot of information and, being the holder an international agency based in Canada, a threat on data protection as it implies a continuous traffic of personal data internationally.

Inmaculada López-Barajas Perea
Privacy in the Internet and penal research: challenges in justice in a globalized society

The possibility that personal information of citizens can be retrieved, remotely, by law enforcement institutions, is it just the digital version of the usual (and completely legal) surveillance methodologies, or is it something new and something that threatens citizens’ privacy?

More information

• Tracking without cookies, by Smári McCarthy.

Panel: Internet Privacy and the Right to Be Forgotten
Chairs: Esther Mitjans, Director of the Catalan Data Protection Authority and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona

Norberto Nuno Gomes de Andrade, Scientific Officer at the European Commission, working at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS, Spain)
The Right to be Forgotten. An Identity Perspective

The right to be forgotten should be anchored to the right to identity.

The data protection – data privacy – identity triangle: the data protection directive presents and apparently harmonious and coherent articulation of the concepts of data protection, privacy and identity. Data protection protects the righ to privacy by relying upon the notion of personal identity. This assumed harmonious connection is flawed and problematic. In reality, it is much more complex and dynamic.

Data protection should be procedural right, while data privacy and identity should be substantial rights. Substantial rights are a social interest, while procedural rights set the rules, methods and conditions through which those substantive rights are effectively enforced and protected.

Right to identity is the right to be unique, the persons’ definite and inalienable interest in the uniqueness of their being. The right to identity is infringed if person A makes use of person B’s identity in a way contrary to how that person B perceives his or her identity.

Right to privacy protects the personal condition of live characterized by seclusion from, and therefore, absence of acquaintance by the public. Right to privacy is only infringed if true private facts related to a person are revealed to the public.

The right to be forgotten can be seen from an identity perspective. Reinforces the anti-essentialism view of Ientity (a narrative identity): a process of negotiation, social construct, a matter of choices; corresponds to the ever-expanding manner in which law is allowing the individual to infuence aspecte of their identity; and matches the rational of the right to identity: the right not to have one’s identity miss represented, right to new beginning, right to be different Unot only from others, but also from one self).

The right to be forgotten from an identity angle also coves the facts that are already in the public domain, public factas, and covers also the not-necessarily truthful or decontextualized information, the one that is out-dated.

Milagros Pérez Oliva, Ombudsman of El País

It is worth noting that the information that appears on a newspaper is very different from the one that appears on a social networking site. In principle, all the information published in newspapers is public interest, and thus, that information should be publicly available. The problem is when (a) newspapers upload all their archives to the Internet and (b) finding out information (oftentimes serendipitously) is now easy and cheap and quick.

Historical archives cannot be modified and must be public. Period. Of course, that is not the final solution in the case of information vs. privacy, but the beginning of all problems. A first recommendation is to write new information according to some cautionary rules: avoid names (just initials) if the person is not a public celebrity, avoid contextual information that can lead to their identification, etc.

The problem comes with already published information. The suggestion could be to put out of the search engines’ reach some obsolete information. The problem comes, again, with defining what is obsolete information, or what has become non-relevant information.

Yet another problem, added to obsolete information or non-relevant, is incomplete information or plain wrong information. Those are pieces of news that were discontinued (e.g. trials) or never corrected and that pose a problem, as there are thousands of pieces of news within this category.

There is a need for a collective decision on how to add or link new information to an already published piece of news.

María González Ordóñez, Head of Legal for Spain, Portugal & Israel, Google Spain

Google’s policy is to not delete personal data from their cache if the original source has not also deleted those data. In this sense, Google is very respectful with what instructions a webmaster gives to Google (usually via robots.txt) in relationship with indexing and caching.

This policy is based in the fact that Google wants to provide what is available in the Internet. If Google erases information that still is on the net, the search engine will lose transparency and neutrality. On the other hand, there is also the fact that Google can do the very same claims of newspapers concerning the right to information and freedom of expression.

Ricard Martínez Martínez. Professor of Constitutional Law, Universitat de València

We have a dire need to balance the different rights put at stake with the digitization of our lives.

And as citizens usually cannot control their profile on the net, the responsibility to take action relies, on the one hand, on the legislator to design a legal framework, and on the other hand, on the online service and content providers.

We could try and have new tools to “prune” our public information. And those tools should be developed by the industry itself.

More information

• El olvido: El derecho a ser diferente… de uno mismo. Una reconsideración del derecho a ser olvidado, by Norberto Nuno Gomes de Andrade.
• ¿Tenemos derecho a ser olvidados en Internet? (IDP 2011), by Cristina Aced

Introduction by Esther Mitjans, Director of the Catalan Data Protection Authority and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona.

Three reasons why the right to forget is not already in the Law:

• We could not know.
• We did not know we were to lose all control on our own data,.
• We could not have known that segmented marketing would highly value personal data.

We face a trade-off between economic profits from data exploitation and privacy and security.

Cécile de Terwangne, Professor, Centre de recherche informatique et droit
Internet Privacy and the Right to Be Forgotten

Privacy does not mean intimacy or secrecy, but individual autonomy. In the context of the internet, it is informational self-determination, the control over one’s personal information. This personal information is made up by confidential data, but also by professional data, commercial data, published data, photos, films, sound…

In Europe, this “informational self-determination” has been recognized and protected by several norms, and the right to oblivion of the judicial/criminal past has been recognized by case law in several countries, based on the right to privacy or on personality rights.

The justification for the right to oblivion is justified by faith in human beings’ capacity of improving, the conviction that man should not be reduced to their past, the idea that once you have paid what was due, society must offer the possibility to rehabilitate.

But the right to oblivion conflicts with the right to information.

The criterion to resolve the conflict should be time:

• If there is newsworthiness, the right to information should prevail.
• If the information is no more newsworthy, then the right to oblivion should prevail.

What do we do, though, with digital newspapers archives and case law databases, which are clearly breaking the balance that we had reached?

Related to case law databases, the solution that has been proposed is anonymization, with respect of the purpose principle — by which only relevant data in relation with the purpose may be processed — and the proportionality principle — by which no excessive data may be processed.

Related to newspapers, one thing is to restrict the dissemination of old personal data, a different one is a right to delete those data. Deleting data out of “chronicles” is tempering on one’s own history.

On the other hand, there is of course a conflict with freedom of the press, a conflict that becomes a dilemma as there is not an a priori hierarchy amongst personal rights freedom of the press or the right to information.

In general, though, legislation shows that too many definitions/thresholds are subjectively defined, like “data won’t be kept longer than necessary” or some conditions under which it is possible to anonymize or delete data.

With the pervasiveness of the Web 2.0 and cloud services, there is a claim for a new right to oblivion, due to the problem of long lasting records kept by certain Internet actors of traces unconsciously left when surfing the web. But, again, as some economic models heavily rely on those data basis, there is a trade-off between personal and corporate rights.

A first solution is having the possibility to stablish a right to have information deleted and not only rendered inaccessible.

Another solution could be based on basing the right to be forgotten on a right based on the no-collection of personal data and established by default, that is, privacy by design.

More information

• Privacidad en Internet y el derecho a ser olvidado/derecho al olvido, by Cécile de Terwangne.
• ¿Tenemos derecho a ser olvidados en Internet? (IDP 2011), by Cristina Aced

Conclusions for day 1
Javier de la Cueva, Lawyer.

First of all, it is worth noting the role of Philosophy when talking about Net Neutrality. We are indeed building a new world, and this new world is not about machines, but about people. And the question is not about Net Neutrality, but about what will be the new 4th generation fundamental rights that we want for our future.

Another important issue is the definition of jurisdiction. And this jurisdiction is not only geographical, but can also be understood all along the value chain Internet provided content and services. We can speak about the different layers that make the Internet up, of about the different ends of the service, etc. But the truth is that there are many actors on the Internet and many of them belong to different legal, technical or factual jurisdictions.

A missing point during the Congress is the asymmetry of download and upload speeds. This asymmetry makes it more difficult peer-to-peer sharing, and makes it more difficult to become a real prosumer.

Again, the important thing is what do we want. In matters of Net Neutrality, do we want Net Neutrality as a right, as a principle or as a goal.

In some way, the absence of net neutrality is like adding a layer of obscurity and unfairness amongst two layers of freedom: the layer of free software, the free code that runs the Internet; and the layer of free content, the one that is freely created by the contributing users.

Of course, we have to be aware that with great power comes great responsibility: we have to acknowledge that a lot of work has still to be done in issues like privacy, reputation and honour, security, etc. Part of the solution comes, evidently, with lawyers and policy-makers learning much more on how the Internet and technology in general work.

More information

• Relato del VII Congreso Internacional sobre Internet, Derecho y Política: Neutralidad de la red y derecho al olvido, by Javier de la Cueva

Track on fundamental rights, freedoms and liability on the Internet
Chairs: Clara Marsan Raventós. Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC)

Patricia Escribano Tortajada
Right to honour vs. freedom of expression in the Net

Defamation on the Internet has become quite an extended practice. What are the limits to freedom of expression vs. the right to honour? And what are the limits of the right to honour vs. freedom of expression?

There is a difference between illicit content — which is against the law — and harmful content, which may damage your reputation while being completely legal.

Some elements are aggravating the problem of harming one’s honour: the high volume of digital content, anonymity and trolling, advertising in websites (i.e. not requiring login for being able to post content), who can access the content, etc.

What are websites doing? Requiring authentication (at least via e-mail), terms of use, ability to edit comments, report inappropriate comments, etc. Some of them, though, are actually a potential threat against freedom of expression.

Most of the law is aimed at protecting the ISP while the citizen remains unprotected. There should be an effort in trying to define better the limits of the right to honour and freedom of expression, when and how regulation applies and, most especially, how do we protect the individual.

Primavera De Filippi, Smári McCarthy
Cloud Computing: Legal Issues in Centralized Architectures

Cloud computing has had a side effect in personal communications: when most of them used to be peer-to-peer through a decentralized service (most times a desktop and one’s own server), now many communications have shifted to public and into centralized services.

Most users do not know how to read the terms of service or would just not read them. Thus, they think they are getting services for free while they are giving away many of their rights.

Another side effect is the lock-in that happens once you’ve got your data and content out in the cloud, and can but just manage it remotely, not massively and with serious concerns whether this content still is your property.

We cannot only rely on national law when it comes to the Internet, but international agreements do not seem to do better. So, what should be done?

Anne W. Salisbury
Anonymity, Trash Talk and Cyber-Smearing on the Internet

The first thing that one has to demonstrate defamation is that the statement made is opinion and not fact, and that is has been exaggerated.

But on the Internet it also depends on other aspects. For instance, the blog were the statement is made and the use of the language (i.e. some words do not any more refer to the original definition of that word, but have become slang with different meanings).

So, many supposed libels or defamations are not such when looked under a different glass.

Indeed, disclosing the anonymity of the “defamators” can sometimes be much more harming that the supposed defamation they committed.

Mª Dolores Palacios González
The stress between impunity in the Net and limiting freedom of expression

There are many examples where anonymous contributors to blogs or forums insult third parties, including individuals, governments and firms. ISPs usually have the safe harbour that most Internet laws provide according to which they have no liability on such harmful comments and statements in general. Though the problem still exist: there are harmful comments on many websites.

But some exceptions should be made, or at least some issues taken into consideration.

For instance, if there is comment moderation, the act of editing and/or approving the comment with defaming statements should not be protected with the safe harbour for ISPs.

Alicia Chicharro
The space of freedom, security and justice and cybercrime in the European Union

The Lisboa treaty shifts “upwards” many of the decisions related to crime and cyberlaw, resulting in a top-down approach to penal law in the member states. There is, though, the right to veto a directive, and also the principle of subsidiarity. Cybercrime is included within this new framework.

Track on Intellectual Property Rights on the Internet
Chairs: Blanca Torrubia Chalmeta. Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC)

Monica Horten
Copyright at a Policy Cross-Roads – Online Enforcement, the Telecoms Package and the Digital Economy Act

What is copyright enforcement? Enforcement is about punishment, about forcing people to do things under penalty of being punished otherwise. That is usually done through courts, and can be written down in obligations (law, regulations, etc.) or even contracts (e.g. contractsthat users sign with service providers).

Sometimes enforcement will also imply a diminution of certain levels of privacy.

What the ‘Telecoms Package’ and the ‘Digital Directive’ tell us is that the fight to enforce copyright law is directly affecting mostly privacy issues and other fundamental rights.

Evi Werkers
Intermediaries in the eye of the copyright storm: A comparative analysis of the three strike approach within the European Union

File sharing still is increasing and becoming pervasive in all activities and strata of the society. And most measures to fight ‘piracy’ have failed. The safe harbour that was build for ISPs is, nevertheless, not unlimited.

Indeed, the enormous complexity of services provided by some operators have made it more difficult to tell whether an ISP is such, whether it is a content or a service provider, etc.

And we are still to find failures in terms of legality (of laws), proportionality, respect to fundamental rights, exemption of liability, etc. There is also a concern on how active preventive measures can still be neutral, or how traffic can be (fairly) managed.

Qian Tao
“Neutrality” Test on web 2.0 Platform for its intermediary liability in China and in Europe

The Tort Liability Law 2010 and the Regulation for the Protectoin of Information Network Dissemination rights are the framework for Internet regulation in China. They provide, like other laws, the safe harbour for web 2.0 service providers.

In order to harmonize different opinions in different courts, the Higher Court of Beijing issued a guide to help the courts take the correct decisions. For instance, the “No direct financial benefit” guideline: even if there are ads, if there are no charges to download/see the video, there is no infringement.

Those guidelines, though, are just guidelines, thus are not compulsory and only apply for the Beijing region.

Benjamin Farrand
‘Piracy. It’s a Crime.’ – The criminalisation process of digital copyright infringement

The criminal enforcement directive seemed to be dead, but the Pirate Bay case sort of brought it back to life. Piracy is increasingly linked to theft, to organised crime, to terrorism. Notwithstanding, research shows that online piracy is not likely to be linked with organised crime or terrorism. We cannot even find what is the methodology used to calculate the (real) losses for the industry of counterfeit material or how damaging is piracy in general.

There is a need for re-assessment, and law-making on the basis of empirical evidence and concrete studies – not industry lobbying. The Hargreaves Review (2011) states that in the case of copyright policy, there is no doubt that the persuasive powers of celebrities and important UK creative companies have distorted policy outcomes.

Track on Net Neutrality
Chairs: Rodolfo Tesone Mendizabal, President of the SDTIC (Information and Communication Technology Law Section at the Barcelona Bar Association)

Helena Nadal Sánchez
Without Net Neutrality, where then the universal logic of innovation?

Postmodernism is based on neo-liberal ideologies that do not acknowledge the lockean concept of (necessary, public) control, or the habermassian concept of the agora, the place to meet and share insights and knowledge.

A sustainable development of the Internet should be agreed. Knowledge societies cannot be built if knowledge does not flow freely. The basis of innovation is not only talent, but the exchange of knowledge.

David Arjones Giráldez
Net Neutrality from the perspective of its layer-based architecture: from public carriers to content managers?

The layer-approach to define the Internet is based on splitting it in different layers, at least three: physical layer, logic layer, content and services layer. There are three principles:

• Each layer must be fully regulated in its own.

An agent in a layer must not operate in any other layer.

• Regulation must be layer-aimed. A specific rule can apply to many of them, but they should not be designed with this goal in mind.

Within this framework, the problem of Net Neutrality can be approached different than usual.

For instance, if operators are tampering on content or services, they are going against the rule where agents cannot operate in but one layer.

Thus, the saturation of the network can be solved with a layer-based new pricing model, but without altering the rest of the layers.

Cristina Cullell March
Net Neutrality and freedoms in the telecommunications reform in the European Union: are they present in whole Europe?

The La Rue report (PDF, 140Kb) for the United Nations (May, 2011) states that access to the Internet should be as a fundamental right. How is Europe treating this right?

Key aspects of Net Neutrality that the EU has already include in their directives:

• Freedom of choice.
• Transparency.
• Quality of service.

European institutions before Net Neutrality:

• The European Commission thinks an open Internet is a major concern. Indeed, it guarantees the “freedoms on the Internet” of the European citizens, and informs the Council and the Parliament.
• European Parliament links Net Neutrality with Digital Rights.
• ORECE: member states are responsible for guaranteeing the neutrality in their territories. Guarantees the normative coherence and harmonization in the European Union. It publicizes good practices.

Does the EU require a complementary regulation on Net Neutrality? Surely we have to work harder on defining transparency and in setting a minimum threshold for quality of service.

José Manuel Pérez Marzabal
Open Internet, Net Neutrality and defence of the competence

There is some overlapping, a symmetry between antitrust regulation and the telcos regulation. And even if maybe the debate around Net Neutrality is not be a debate on the telecommunications’ market competition, more market competition undoubtedly favours major degrees of neutrality.

Clara Marsan Raventós
The Net as a public space: Is Net-neutrality necessary to preserve on-line freedom of expression?

It’s increasingly difficult to think about things one cannot do on the Internet. As a space, people are used to meet in that “space” regardless on who is actually providing the technological platform, only aiming at not being banned or filtered on that public space.

So, as a public space, the Internet becomes more important and the management of the information that populates is becomes a crucial aspect for the society.

Of course there are limits operating on the Internet, as public morality… as anything that already operates in the physical world. The problem being that while the Internet is truly global, such a thing as public morality is exclusively local, cultural, social.

The, which are the actors that can control the Internet and who can say whether public morality should or should not be an issue in the Internet?

There already is a vast array of tools that can be used for censoring content on the Net. And worst of all, those are tools that are decentralized and can be applied at different levels of the chain of content transmission. As tools are widespread, so are the different actors that can apply them in their processes.

Negotiation must then be a multistakeholder one.

Panel: The Net Neutrality debate: Stakeholders’ perspective
Chairs: Miquel Peguera. Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC)

Maite Arcos. General Director of RedTel (Spanish Association of Telecommunications Operators)

The Internet is a complex ecosystem: there are content providers (e.g. digital newspapers), service providers (e.g. Google), facilitating services (e.g. PayPal), connectivity providers (telecoms), user interfaces (e.g. Windows) and the users. Most of these actors are interconnected, but content and service providers are (usually) not connected with telecoms, which has caused several problems between them, amongst which who pays for the intensity of usage of the networks and whether content and services should be served on a neutral basis.

And there is an increasing pressure on telecoms as traffic increases at highest rates year after year… while Internet access charges have been diminishing in real trends. Content and service providers have no incentives on providing “light” services (there is no “price” on the bytes they transfer). It ends up with operators not being able to catch up with investment needs to maintain a quality service.

Possibilities:

1. Stop investments, while degrading the service.
2. Increase Internet access fees.
3. Product and service differentiation.
4. New negotiation with service and application providers to look for new and more balanced agreements.

Telcos do not thing #1 and #2 are an actual possibility, so we should be exploring #3 and #4.

Andreu Teixidor. Director de estrategia editorial de BUBOK

The printing press did not change the way to publish writings, but changed the world, as the Internet is doing to ours. The Internet is changing how works are published, but also how will democracy be transformed, the way we feel, etc. So, neutrality is not about an industry, it is about how we share our future.

Ofelia Tejerina. Lawyer. Asociación de Internautas

A first problem, dire problem, when it comes to network regulation is that policy makers usually do not understand the new nature of a digital society.

There are prior stages to net regulation that have not been satisfied as transparency or accountability of telcom practices.

And this transparency and accountability has to be guaranteed by the Judiciary branch, not the Government and of course not the private sector. And it is the Legislative branch that has to find out how to update the laws that we are using and that are completely obsolete.

One of the most important reflections has to be around pricing:

• What are we really paying? Infrastructures? Content? Services? At what cost?
• Who should be paying? Should any prosumer pay when they upload (and not only download) content?

Discussion

Ismael Peña-López: why don’t we nationalize the infrastructures? Wouldn’t that be solving many problems at once? Arcos: the problem would then be who pays for the infrastructure, would it be taxes? fees paid by the operators?

Antoni Elias: another problem would be how innovation on infrastructures would be triggered by public initiative. Most innovation comes from competing infrastructures, which would cease to be if they were to be merged under a single public infrastructure. [own short comment on the latter is reminding what happened with innovation in railroads in the UK once privatized or in electricity suppliers in the US]

Chris Marsden: it is not true that most infrastructures are paid by private money, as many last milers already know, having to pay Internet access from their own money or being supplied by the government as part of their universal access policy. On the other hand, the investment is nothing compared with the insvestments in railroads in the XIXth and XXth centuries, while benefits would most probably be way higher. Concerning competition amongst networks, what is more common is that telcos do share networks and just rarely compete on that issue.

Javier de la Cueva: why is it that the OCED states that we have the most expensive broadband services? Arcos: Spain is one of the few countries where there is a real choice where to get your broadband service. Besides, quality standards in Spain are very high, but this is not taken into account in the measurements performed by the OECD.

Panel: The Net Neutrality debate: The Policy Options
Chairs: Miquel Peguera, Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Political Science (UOC).

Antoni Elias, Professor at ETS d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicació de Barcelona, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Telecommunication Engineering School at UPC)
The debate on net neutrality: regulation-based policy options

Four stages that stress the Internet:

• Technical complexity
• Legal complexity
• Economic complexity
• A social engine

For all these reasons there are arguments enough to have a supranational structure to regulate the Internet. There is no solution on the issue of net neutrality without this supranational regulatory institution, as the Internet knows no borders. Especially when most communications run over what we generally call the Internet: and IP-based protocol with a name system regulated by the IANA/ICANN.

Telecomms used to charge by access to the service (line rent) and for each use of the service (e.g. minutes called). With DSL, the paying system changes and operators tend to be paid through flat rates. This change implies that the growth of usage is not (directly) associated with a parallel increase in income. Does this scale or is this sustainable?

If we compare the Internet with the printing press, what we might be facing now is how the Internet opens up a new enlightenment as the press did in the XVIII century. But, for this new enlightenment to happen, like the printing press, the Internet must be free from control.

Innovation and investment in networks are as important as the new applications, services, contents or devices. And, of course, traffic must be managed and users and services must be managed too. But managing is not discirminating: discriminating is treating different what is not, not treating different what is different.

Joan Barata, Professor of Communication Law and Vice Dean for International Relations and Quality at Blanquerna Communications School, Universitat Ramon Llull

Net neutrality is not (only) about technology.

There is a big difference between hetero-regulation and self-regulation. And self-regulation might not be enough, so external regulation may apply.

And it is not (only) about discriminating traffic, but also, for instance, about the design and functioning of search engines: how do they search, how do they show the results, etc.

The problem is that if we add a regulatory burden to the carrier, we are also adding to it the possibility to open and peak on the packets that it is carrying. So, we may have a trade-off between free competition and privacy or even security.

‘Reasonable’ discrimination is also a complex issue. It is not ‘reasonable’ to discriminate on a monopolistic basis, to avoid competition. On the other hand, it is not ‘reasonable’ to discriminate on a politics basis, banning specific ideologies. But, would it be ‘reasonable’ to discriminate if the user wants so? The FCC acknowledges that whenever the user has control over the discrimination, that is ‘reasonable’.

But the discrimination based on what you pay is not ‘reasonable’.

So, when we speak about regulations — and regulators — it may be a good idea not to design it to regulate networks, but also with the aim to regulate content, as net neutrality is a matter of both worlds: technology and society.

Ángel León, State Department for Telecommunications and Information Society
Net Neutrality: a critical vision of the normative approach

Why are we speaking about Net Neutrality when al the goals seem to be the traditional ones that applied to the regulation of telecommunications as we used to know them?

A first difference is using Net Neutrality and its regulation as a unifier of different problems or open topics on telecomm regulation. A second one is that Net Neutrality only applies to a specific kind of networks: the Internet. And a third one is that the regulation will apply regardless of the size or market power of the operator.

Most of the regulation on Net Neutrality focus on the quality of the service. But some obligations we impose on the operators just do not allow them to provide this quality service.

On the other hand, there are some practices that circumvent any kind of restriction, like being able to control the presence of the user at a given time, where is the user, knowing their capabilities to connect, being able to stablish different pricing systems, etc.

The usual Net Neutrality approach favours a layered model, with a neutral point of access, but a discriminating service. Indeed, it does not allow for priorities, or different treatment for different cases.

Internet represents a new paradigm which does not allow for traditional regulatory approaches. It’s value change has become so broad, that regulating only access or some specific checkpoints is almost useless.

Discussion

Chris T. Marsden: wouldn’t it be possible to try and sync Europe with the US? León: the problem is that laws and rules (norms, regulation in general) are two different things. And in the case of Europe, Laws are really behind providing an appropriate framework within which rules and norms can be designed. That is not the case of the US, where the FCC can act powerfully with a Law scheme drawn in 1996.

Miquel Peguera: what is the future like? Barata: one of the most important things will be being able to put the correct questions and being able to explain them to the population at large. Elias: the collapse of the network is not something that one can envision, but it is nevertheless a powerful argument against Net Neutrality. Indeed, it is the chaos and anarchy of the Internet what made it the rich space that it is. León: the citizenry wants an open Internet and governments should provide the framework for that to be possible. The question is how Net Neutrality can enter laws: as a right, a regulatory principle or a goal. And each one requires a very different approach.

More information

• El concepto de net neutrality y la tensión entre regulación pública y autorregulación privada de las redes, by Joan Barata.

Christopher T. Marsden, Communications Law Prof, University of Essex, UK
Network Neutrality: European Law?

Common carriage is fair reasonable and non-discriminatory treatment of content whatever its nature. Eli M. Noam predicted in 1994 the end of common carriage, though the debate is much older. Every time there has been a debate on monopolies on the “carrying” nature of some specific infrastructures, the debate on common carriage has rised: inns and boats, railways, telegraphs, then modern networks, etc.

Network neutrality debate began as we know it in 1999 due to mergers of cable TV and broadband companies, and sparkled by Lessig and Lemley FCC submission The end of End-to-End.

Internet, as an open network, was regulated by common carriage, and some general rights were granted to it to avoid discrimination:

• Interoperability
• Interconnection
• Privacy
• Interception

There actually are a number of actual and considered practices that are about to — or already have — cross the red line of net neutrality, like different tariffs according to usage, different speeds, etc.

So far we have a Net Neutrality ‘lite’, with some decisions in Canada, the US or Europe, with ‘non-discrimination’ presumption subject to national security, law enforcement, public safety, etc. and a ‘reasonable network management’. And we will negotiate Net Neutrality ‘heavy’ about different speed rates, special and managed services, etc.

The problem with the many backdoors that the exceptions add to ISP regulation imply, in practical terms, that there are many possibilities for ISPs not to be neutral at all.

Presently, Chile (2010), Finland (2010) and the Netherlands (2011) have issued Net Neutrality specific laws, while Canada and Norway are on their way to it.

In Europe, we had a declaration to protect Net Neutrality and no will to implement nothing but just delaying it forever (despite officially being a debate and a formal proposal for a directive).

Discussion

Q: What can policy-makers do? A: The ECOSOC is actually doing research on Net Neutrality. Civil society is also working hard, as it did at the OECD high-level meeting on net neutrality. There has to be a serious negotiation, especially in matters as censorship and what is the acceptable level of censorship that we want.

More information

• Neutralidad de la Red: Historia, regulación y futuro, by Christopher Thomas Marsden.

Citizen Participation in the Cloud
Chairs: Ismael Peña-López

Citizen participation in the Cloud: risk of storm
Albert Batlle, Open University of Catalonia.

The situation we are in is a context of crisis of political legitimacy. This means much less political participation in general and, more specifically, protest voting, young people voting less, decreasing levels of affiliation to parties or other civic organizations, etc.

On the other hand, we see the explosion of the Information Society and of the Web 2.0, “participative” by definition. ICTs are adopted by political organizations in the fields of eGovernment — to provide public services for the citizen — and eDemocracy — to enhance and foster participation.

Two different perspectives in the crossroads between political disaffection and the Information Society:

• Cyberoptimism: ICTs will lead to a mobilization effect. More people will participate because participation costs are lower, there is much more information than before, etc.
• Cyberpessimism: ICTs will lead to new elites because of the digital divide. The existing differences between the ones that participated and the ones that didn’t are broadened.
• Realists: we need more empirical studies (and to avoid technological determinism).

We have new technologies for citizen participation but, what tools for what uses? A research for the Barcelona county council.

After a survey within the Barcelona municipalities, we can state:

• There are different participation activities depending on whether the communication is horizontal or vertical.
• There are topics more prone to intensively use ICTs: urban planning, youngsters, education and equality, elder people, sustainability.
• Not organized citizens, resources, transversal coordination are variables that are usually identified as barriers not overcome; while training, innovation, agenda, associations or political agreement are usually identified as goals reached through ICT-enhanced participation.

The study then goes on to analyze tools and applications and how they fit in the participation process:

• Directionality, qualitative: unidirectional, bidirectional, hybrid
• Directionality, quantitative: one-to-one, one-to-many, many to many.
• Competences: basic, advanced, expert.
• Applications: type of tool, cost, hosting, “mashability”.

Participation moments:

• Mobilization: information about the participation process and the goals to be achieved.
• Development: putting into practice the participation project.
• Closing: stating the decision being made.
• Follow up: monitoring and assessment of the decision reached.

A first analysis of 19 international cases, we see that most tools have a one-to-many directionality, are bidirectional, and are mainly used in the mobilization moment. User registration and the data they have to provide is an important issue and must be decided in advance, as happens with deciding the goals and functioning of the process, which includes defining and identifying the role of the online facilitator. Free software is usually the option chosen, and accessibility (in a broad sense) is normally taken into account.

We find two different models. Even if models are not “pure”, we can see opposite approaches: Initiatives aimed at community building, characterized by being open, relational, fostering engagement, using free tools and aiming at a networked participation, with a facilitator that engages in a bidirectional conversation. And policy oriented initiatives, characterized by being more formal (or formalized), focussing at decision-taking and representation, using own platforms and more “traditional” participation means, with a facilitator that guides and information that flows asymmetrically and unidirectionally.

Cloud computing is both an opportunity and a challenge. On the one hand, there are legal hazards that need being solved, but that also disclose some interesting spaces. Indeed, the new a-institutional logic is disruptive but also provides new ways of learning, as the public and private spheres intersect one to each other and get confused (want it or not) one with each other. It is a response to the de-legitimation of political institutions, but it is also a reassurance that citizens do care about public affairs: the crisis is in the institutions, not in participation itself.

Bernard Woolley: “Well, yes, Sir…I mean, it [open government] is the Minister’s policy after all.”
Sir Arnold: “My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government.”

(from Yes Minister, 1980)

Evgeny Morozov, Georgetown University’s E. A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Decisions made at the technological level in Western economies/businesses will affect how cyberactivism takes place… all over the world. What Google, Twitter or Facebook decides impacts citizen action everywhere.

There is much effort on building social capital online, uploading content, gathering people in a group, and this effort relies on a potential arbitrary decision by the owner of the online platform, who serves who knows whose will. Groups in social networking sites disappear every day without previous notice and most times without an explicit and clear reason for it.

But regulating these corporations is often seen as a barrier to democratize more quickly less democratic countries. You don’t want to “spoil” a Web 2.0 application if it is seldom used to raise protests against non-democratic regimes, or used on human emergencies, etc.

But outside of Western countries, most applications are owned and run by local companies that have less freedom of choice than in other places of the World. If the Chinese or Russian or Iranian governments ask for user personal data to these companies, they have little chances not to deliver them. This makes datamining by governments very easy and very effective to locate and identify dissidents.

Besides direct extortion to companies, governments can directly monitor and put up several kinds of citizen surveillance, including entering an individual’s computer because the government infiltrated the computer with a trojan or any other kind of spy-software. Of all, the major problem is not even being aware of that manipulation. Same applies to web servers, of course.

On the legal side, governments or several lobbies have the power to manipulate content online, by crowding out conversations. If this is a trivial debate, then the influence of the strong part has no major impact. But if that is a pre-election debate, it can lead to indirect tampering and not-really-legitimate democratic participation.

And doing all that is not very difficult: custom police can (actually do) google people and see what comes up in the search results, scan their Facebook profiles, see who a specific person is related to and, according to that, decide to decline a visa request.

Besides governments, authors that we would not consider very “democratic” (e.g. fascist movements) are doing impressive things online in social networking sites, mashups, etc. So, Web 2.0 and cloud computing tools are double-edged swords and both serve noble and evil purposes and goals, like e.g. mapping where ethnics minorities are mashing up rich public data with map applications either to avoid or to attack them.

There is a dynamic that the Internet brings and that might makes us stop and think whether we like it or not: is a shift towards full openness a good thing? is a shift towards direct democracy a good thing too?

Discussion

Ana Sofía Cardenal: can you provide more information about the survey you talked about? Batlle: the survey was made in 112 cities (more than 10,000h less Barcelona). 81% answered the survey explaining use of ICT in participation initiatives.

Ana Sofía Cardenal: why nationalist movements are more present online than liberal ones? Morozov: the short answer is that hate travels more faster than hope online. But it might be more about phobia rather than nationalism. On the other hand, the Internet has no borders and allows for birds of the same flock to cluster around online spaces rather than having to stick to their artificial national myths.

Ismael Peña-López: data havens yes or no? protection or impunity? Morozov: One the one hand, governments should not support law circumvention tools (like TOR), basically because they are massively used by criminals, or by people whose purpose is not very clear and its justification varies depends on your approach. Regarding Wikileaks, the problem is that once a hot file is out, it is difficult to block, and the more you try to block it, the more it is disseminated (the Streisand effect). Something should be done, yes, but it is not clear what.

Ronald Leenes: It is also true that governments also use tools that activists use for security reasons, so they should at least allow for these tools to develop and even be funded. Morozov: right, but you cannot be pushing for the rule of law and with the other hand allowing the proliferation of tools that are clearly used to break the rule of law. Leenes: this apply to many technologies!

Jordi Vilanova: We’re talking about social networking sites as being run by corporations, but it is likely that in the future we find SNS being ruled by foundations or non-governmental organizations. So, there still is some room for Web 2.0 applications being “safely” used by individuals. A second comment is that we are looking at non-democratic regimes but, in the meanwhile, so-called liberal democracies are trimming citizen rights with the excuse of security and so. So we should be more concerned about these hypocrite countries. Morozov: it is true that foundations can run their own SNS, but the thing is that most times is not about the tool, but about audience and critical mass, and this audience is in private corporations’ platforms, and this will be difficult to change. And regarding transparency, transparency has to come with footnotes to avoid misleads.

See also

• Participación y activismo en la nube, by Karma Peiró.
• Lessig (2009) Against transparency.

Cyber-crime prosecution
Chairs: Blanca Torrubia

Police investigation in the field of cloud computing
Rubèn Mora, head of Technologies of Information Security Department, Mossos d’Esquadra [Catalan national police].

One of the problems of cybercrime in cloud computing might be that the actual regulation does not take into account especific illegal uses of the Internet. Thus, the police has always to catch up with both technology and the law.

On the other hand, in real life we are used to sue (or to complain after) someone whose actions hurt us, but when it happens online we just go and call the police: this is overwhelming for cybercrime prosecutors, as many times it is not their duty or it is not that clear that it is.

Nevertheless, it is understandable that the citizen goes to the police, as many times it is not that clear who is liable for you having been harmed. This ends up with the citizen, in general terms, being less secure in matters of who is liable. In the same way, the police is tied to geographical jurisdictions that are not always the same ones as the ones that affect the one that created the harm.

If that was already a problem in the first year of the Internet, with cloud computing it has been multiplied by orders of magnitude, as cloud computing works in three different layers (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) that make reality much more complex. The creation of Certs has lightened bureaucracies, but their interaction is still slower than crime.

Some cloud computing cyber-crimes: password cracking (PaaS), anonymous transactions (SaaS), phishing hosting (PaaS), botnet renting (IaaS), CAPTCHA resolving (PaaS), credential credit card steal (SaaS), etc.

Francisco Hernández Guerrero, Prosecutor, Granada Prosecutor’s Office.

Law has to be practical, efficient. We have very nice laws and guarantees of rights that we never apply. There usually is a trade-off between efficiency and guaranteeing the citizens’ rights: the problem is finding the desired balance.

Against cloud computing, nowadays, there is no way to be efficient: prosecutors (police, courts) have no means of being efficient. Thus, should we give up to some guarantees? Cloud computing is about dematerializing everything: and, with dematerialization, the difficulty to trace and monitor. Cloud computing shifts the claim for ownership to availability (e.g. instead of downloading music, having it available through streaming). Cloud computing is also about delocalization: hardware and software are usually not where the user is.

The division of two concepts: the difference between being connected and being communicating. Your mobile phone might be on and connected and exchanging information with other devices, but you might not be communicating — strictly speaking — with anyone. And being so easy becoming a criminal — in full consciousness or unconsciously — the solution is to monitor and put surveillance on anyone.

Main characteristics of cloud computing:

• Economic: money aimed;
• Highly pro;
• Botnet: the infrastructure as system;
• Absolutely unbalanced: the bad guys are much more than the good ones, as the good ones’ computers are corrupted by the bad ones, thus becoming part of the crime network.

We definitely have to re-define the law.

• We need a set of measures to enable surveillance of the citizen but distinguishing connection and communication. e.g. RFID-based crime should fall onto the category of data protection, not onto the right of communications.
• Measures (legal and technical) have to be progressive: we have to distinguish an individual uploading photos of their ex-couple in a social networking site, from a terrorist network copying credit cards.
• We need a catalogue of cyber-crimes, especially those characterized as serious.
• And we need independence of the support or the holder of data: we need access to all data from a person wherever they are stored.

The model should, thus, split technicalities from guarantees: the police should lead the investigations, as they have the knowledge and the means; while prosecutors and courts should follow the processes to guarantee their righteousness.

Discussion

Jordi Vilanova: what is the liability of the owner of an infected device? Hernández Guerrero: Yes, in the same way that you are liable to a certain extent to do the maintenance of your car so that you don’t run over anyone, some knowledge of the power of a specific device and its maintenance (e.g. a PC and an anti-virus) should be a requisite and the owner liable for not acting according to that requisite.

Marcel Mateu: Right, we have to change the law. But how many policemen and prosecutors are able to work in the digital age? Mora: the resources of the police often depend on how the citizenry pushes their governments to fight this or that type of crime. If the priority is e.g. gender violence, then cyber-crime is less funded. Hernández: in general terms, agreed that cyber-crimes are not in the political agenda. Surely much of the “cyber-” is just crime done by electronic means, but maybe the politician needs an “e-Pearl Harbor” to realize that the world has changed.

Blanca Torrubia: what is the profile of the cyber-criminal? and what should be required to fight cyber-crime? Mora: the cyber-criminal is increasingly younger as years go by, astonishingly young. And the best way to fight cyber-crime is information and training. There is evidence that cyber-crime over minors drastically decreases if they are being informed and trained on the hazards of specific behaviours on the net.

See also

• Detectar a los ‘malos’ es más difícil en la nube, by Karma Peiró.

From Electronic Administration to Cloud Administration
Chairs: Agustí Cerrillo

Open Government in the Basque Government
Nagore de los Ríos, Director of Open Government and Internet Communication, Basque government.

Open data as transparency in the purest state. Examples:

• Elpreciodelagasolina.com, a website that presents in alternative ways, easy to understand, oil prices in Spanish oil stations.
• lospresus.de about public budgets.

Irekia is the open government project of the Basque Government to provide public data in a very accessible way, easy to reuse. Open Cloud Government is more a philosophy than a technology, it is another way to manage public affairs, to decide taking into account the citizens’ opinion. Irekia is not a services website, it is not an e-Administration website. Irekia is a website to listen to the citizen, to offer immediate information in search for debate and reflection.

Data are linked from the original source.

Transparency, participation, collaboration.

What does Irekia offer the citizen:

• Tools for collaborative work.
• Streaming of events.
• Informations in real time.
• Daily agenda
• Audiovisual and multimedia material.
• Tools to comment and share information.

This kind of initiatives are based on leadership and government commitment. Otherwise, they are neither possible nor sustainable. Besides political support and commitment, open government also requires a radical organizational change and, over all, a change in attitudes. It is in the daily tasks that open government succeeds or fails.

What does Irekia offer the members of the public administration:

• On demand audiovisual material.
• Internal agenda per department.
• Possibility to diffuse events.
• Active Internet monitoring (escucha activa, what is being said about you on the Net).
• Consultancy 2.0.
• Comment moderation.
• Complete, tag and disseminate on the Web information published by the departments.

One of the goals of open government is not to have a lot of traffic, or a lot of sympathisers of the website, but to be a hub and distribute interests to their goals. e.g. what open government pretends is not creating online communities of patients, but that they are able to do it by themselves.

One of the problems, notwithstanding, of “all being open” is that anyone can create their own participation platform (government and citizens) and it is becoming increasingly difficult to know who’s “legitimate” to promote a certain activity; it is also becoming increasingly difficult to find out where to participate, or what for; there’s a big replication of projects that reinvent the wheel on and on, etc.

Open Electronic Administration in Catalonia
Miquel Estapé, Assistant Manager of Catalonia’s Open Administration Consortium.

Open Administration Consortium: built upon the principles of collaboration, ICTs and change. Why collaboration?

• Interoperability: not about technology, but about the citizen and the interaction between public administrations.

• Reutilization: Avoid reinventing the wheel.
• Security. Digital identity, electronic signature, long-lasting validation.

Cloud computing is not a new technology, but a new way to provide services. But, in the public service, this means some struggles:

• 82% of cities and towns are below 5,000 inhabitants which means they have no resources for an IT director. Same happens with organizational management.
• Actually, in general city councils have increasing obligations and decreasing revenues/resources.
• The management of (electronic) services is complex: more services, specific regulation, security, 24×7 availability, scalability, etc.
• Reluctance to change.

The Open Administration Consortium works with district and province councils — as they are the more knowledgeable on the reality of city councils — and Localret, a consortium of municipalities to develop ICT strategies. The Open Administration Consortium provides, thus, different services to the different municipalities according to their needs, nature and resources. Among others, main services include public procurement, online invoicing, inter-administrative procedures, citizen documents, etc.

Reluctances are the usual about privacy, data security, liability of data management, fear of change, fear of cyberwar, etc.

I look forward a municipality that will have no physical space, no web servers, no… but a virtual desktop where all data, applications and services will be hosted. This will be especially useful for the secretary of several tiny towns (small towns usually share a single public officer) that will be able to manage three or four of them from just a virtual desktop and teleworking from home.

See also

• “La administración abierta estará en la nube o no estará”, by Karma Peiró.
• “De la administración electrónica a la administración en la nube”. Congreso IDP2010, by Marc Garriga.
• Cyberwar: War in the fifth domain, at The Economist.