September 26th, 2008
TPRC Conference: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It
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I’ll be live-blogging all weekend from the TPRC Conference at George Mason University.
The first panel is about to discuss Jonathan Zittrain’s book ‘The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It’.
Jonathan Zittrain’s book is about how the real power of the internet is its open, generative, innovative nature and how closed appliances like iPod, iPhone, TiVo and XBox are threatening to lock it down.
The panel is moderated by Philip Weiser and members of the panel include Gigi Sohn, Scott Hemphill, Maureen Ohlhausen, Pamela Samuelson, Christopher Yoo and Link Hoewing.
The panel is mostly focusing on the regulatory responses to closed application platforms and the possibility of a ‘malware-triggered Internet 9/11 crisis that will inspire an Internet Patriot Act’.
I believe that closed appliance based application platforms are important because they give companies the financial incentives to foster innovation. However, the movement from a closed application platform to a open (source) platform is almost inevitable, as we are seeing in the case of iPhone and Android. So, there’s an innovation curve in play here, with closed application platforms creating new markets followed by open application platforms opening up the market.
This self-correcting market mechanism only works, however, if regulators stay out of markets. Which is why the internet (that has less regulation) is much more open than telecom (that has much more regulation). However, I’m not sure if I should make such statements at the TRPC conference - my sense is that it won’t be a popular point of view.
Update: Jonathan Zittrain came on-stage at the end of the panel discussion and commented on the points discussed by the other panel members. He made some important points about the baton switch wielded by application platforms like Facebook, Apple and even Google, and suggested that we discuss portability policy as much as privacy policy. The debate on data portability, however, is already hot (I’m reminded of Joseph Smarr’s session at the Web 2.0 Expo NY on implementing the open web), isn’t it?
