Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of acronyms
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Power, interests, and negotiations
- 3 Services and intellectual property: multilateral framework negotiations
- 4 Cultural industries and telecommunications: multilateral sectoral negotiations
- 5 Infrastructure pricing negotiations: evaluating alternatives when facing a significant market power
- 6 Electronic commerce: reaching agreement when facing market power in Internet governance and data privacy
- 7 Conclusion: power and governance
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Electronic commerce: reaching agreement when facing market power in Internet governance and data privacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 June 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of acronyms
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Power, interests, and negotiations
- 3 Services and intellectual property: multilateral framework negotiations
- 4 Cultural industries and telecommunications: multilateral sectoral negotiations
- 5 Infrastructure pricing negotiations: evaluating alternatives when facing a significant market power
- 6 Electronic commerce: reaching agreement when facing market power in Internet governance and data privacy
- 7 Conclusion: power and governance
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect – to help people work together – and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world … We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is the sort we intend.
When technology evolves quickly, society can find itself left behind, trying to catch up on ethical, legal, and social implications. This has certainly been the case with the World Wide Web.
Tim Berners-Lee Weaving the Web (1999)The last chapter examined cases where the incumbent's market power led to no-agreements and unilateral action in international negotiations. This chapter examines two cases where market incumbency did allow for agreement: the crucial difference comes from attempts to make the Internet interoperable – the “weblike existence” referred to in the quote above – necessitating global electronic commerce and related data flows. In the previous chapter, interoperability existed; the dispute was over prices. In this chapter, interoperability is emerging and may be facilitated by negotiated global rules. As noted in earlier chapters, negotiated interactions dispose what technologies propose as possible alternatives. Nevertheless, the emerging global rules allow the incumbent to set the priorities. The governing body for assigning domain names was established in 1999 and benefited the US private sector. It was under license from the Department of Commerce, allowing the US to retain direct involvement.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Negotiation and the Global Information Economy , pp. 229 - 275Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008