Throwing a Shoe at China's Great Firewall Creator

[NOTE: This is the first of two China and authoritarian development posts.] In case you missed it, you should really get a hold of this. For some time, I've been fascinated with shoe throwing as a form of political protest [1, 2] and the lengths the PRC leadership goes through to maintain the Great Firewall of China (GFW)[1, 2]. So, it was inevitable that I would be most interested in the news that Fang Binxing--recognized as the architect of the aforementioned Internet censorship infrastructure--was pelted with eggs and shoes by a yet-unidentified protester:

Police in China say they are seeking a man who allegedly threw an egg and shoes at the designer of the country's Great Firewall of web controls. Fang Binxing was lecturing at Wuhan University, Hubei province, when the alleged protest took place. Reports of the attack spread quickly on Twitter after a user named Hanunyi posted his account of the incident.

Mr Fang is reviled by many Chinese web users for overseeing development of China's system of internet censorship. The computer scientist, who is Principal of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, has been dubbed the Father of the Great Firewall.

Alas for his critics, alike George W. Bush, Mr. Fang was reportedly quite nimble in dodging incoming projectiles:

An officer at Luojiashan Public Security Bureau confirmed police were investigating the alleged attack, AP news agency reported. Protester covers mouth Protesters accuse China's government of stifling its critics and restricting freedom of speech

Hanunyi posted a live account of the alleged shoe-throw on his profile page, including a picture of a hand clutching an egg. "The egg missed the target. The first shoe hit the target. The second shoe was blocked by a man and a woman," he tweeted.

The Great Firewall, also known as the Golden Shield Project, blocks thousands of websites, including those linked to the Dalai Lama and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. It also filters keyword searches for sensitive topics such as Tibet or Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel prize-winning dissident.

According to some Twitter users, searches for "hanunyi" have also been blocked since the alleged attack on Mr Fang took place. China's government has invested heavily in controlling the internet, recently setting up a body to monitor censorship: the State Internet Information Office.

I myself have some questions. For instance, what was this guy lecturing about? Automatically filtering pornographic content by checking the amount of skin tone present in images? Certainly, this guy was never meant for public consumption. Yet as I always like to say, boys and girls, you're nobody in this world until people start throwing shoes at you (and maybe eggs too, for that matter). Dubya, Wen Jiabao...it's pretty rarefied company ;-)

WikiLeaks: Shell 'Infiltrates' Nigeria, Hugo Bossed

I can hardly believe that this is my third post on WikiLeaks. After cataloguing typical American double-speak on "Internet freedom" (whatever that is) and suggesting that WikiLeaks move to Montenegro if survival is its goal, we now have two interesting entries.

First, I have in the past featured the highly controversial activities of Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria. To say that its activities in the Niger Delta and relationship with the Ogoni tribe are controversial is to put things mildly. Now we have these cables in which American officials claim that a Shell executive boasted of infiltrating the Nigerian government. From WikiLeaks' media partner The Guardian:

The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.

The company's top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.

The cache of secret dispatches from Washington's embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo-Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti-aircraft missiles.

There's another story that caught my eye. I have never been much of a fan of Venezuela's so-called Bolivarian Revolution insofar as it has done rather worse by its people in the aftermath of expropriating several Western oil companies. If you kick the foreigners out, I'd be a heck of a lot more impressed if you could at least sustain output at pre-nationalization levels. Let's just say Hugo Chavez hasn't achieved this feat. Talk about ideology trumping reality. Worse, for lack of technical expertise, it's said that he's asking same Western companies he kicked out to come back on terms more favourable to them. Not very impressive; Simon Bolivar probably wouldn't approve:

Venezuela's tottering economy is forcing Hugo Chávez to make deals with foreign corporations to save his socialist revolution from going broke. The Venezuelan president has courted European, American and Asian companies in behind-the-scenes negotiations that highlight a severe financial crunch in his government. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, is the engine of the economy but buckled when given an ultimatum by its Italian counterpart and has scrambled to attract foreign partners, according to confidential US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

The memos depict an unfolding economic fiasco and suggest some of Chávez's key allies – Argentina, Brazil and Cuba – are gravely concerned at Venezuela's direction. "President Chávez, for his part, is acutely aware of the impact the country's general economic trajectory has had on his popularity," says one cable...

However, in separate private conversations with the [American] ambassador, Patrick Duddy, industry figures detailed the parlous state of the industry. A senior manager from Chevron estimated the state oil company's output at 2.1m to 2.3m barrels per day, well below official declarations of 3.3m.

And then there's the humiliation of Hugo as he calls back the conquistadores:

Italy's ambassador to Caracas, Luigi Maccotta, told his US counterpart that [national] Italian oil company ENI squeezed PDVSA over an Orinoco belt deal in January this year knowing it had no one else to turn to. The Italians delayed the signing by two days to reinforce the Venezuelan government's "need for ENI". Paolo Scaroni, the company's CEO, then faced down Venezuela's oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, over changes to terms and conditions.

"Thirty minutes before the ceremony was supposed to begin Scaroni told Ramirez: 'Take it or leave it, I can get on my plane and move on.' Ramirez apparently used that half an hour to convince President Chávez to accept all of ENI's proposed changes or risk losing the deal," according to the US cable. The Italians said they would not pay PDVSA a standard signing bonus because the company already owed them $1bn.

Colour me unimpressed, Hugo.

Hey Assange, Take WikiLeaks.ch to Montenegro

Whatever you may think of Julian Assange's now world-famous leaks, you have to wonder about his follow-through. Having plied a cache of cables from the world's most formidable foreign service, he's had a more challenging time keeping his leaks online. As we keep reading nowadays, Amazon decided to discontinue hosting WikiLeaks (allegedly under duress). Meanwhile, the cash flow to Julian Assange & Co. has also been severed as PayPal has similarly cut off handling donations to this "illegal" operation.

So having done the hard work of acquiring American secrets, it is thus puzzling to me why he's not thought of keeping his online renegade activities afloat. Odd? Yes, of course. Puzzlingly enough, Assange hasn't observed the tactics of those who've been in American crosshairs for a much longer period of time--Internet software piracy sites. As if on cue, the world's top private tracker site, Demonoid, has moved its registration to--get this--Montenegro

Earlier this week Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it had seized some 82 domain names as part of its ongoing “Operation In Our Sites” and already one site, Demonoid.com, is trying to stay one step ahead of the game by migrating its site to a new address. “We are in the process of migrating the site to our new address, Demonoid.ME,” says the BitTorrent tracker site.

When it comes to foreign sites the US govt can only seize the domain name pointers of domains under its jurisdiction. This includes those top-level domains administered by Verisign, and thus ICANN [like .COM].

Though no torrent tracker-hosting sites have been targeted thus far, the latest round of “Operation In Our Sites” did ensnare the BitTorrent tracker search engine Torrent-finder.com. If ICE can seize the domain name of site that doesn’t even host torrent trackers then surely it could one that actually does.

Demonoid.com is simply trying to stay one step ahead of the game by registering the site with .me, the top-level domain for the tiny country of Montenegro. It’s another in a long series of tug wars between govt and technology, despite the fact that the latter is always guaranteed victory in the end.

Well of course this writeup views Demonoid's actions favourably since it's called, erm, ZeroPaid. In any event, the Yanqui cybercops at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have triggered a backlash among the money-for-nothing online crowd with its "Operation in Our Sites" (v. 2.0, mind you) that targets those selling pirated merchandise:

Seizure orders have been executed against 82 domain names of commercial websites engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and copyrighted works as part of Operation In Our Sites v. 2.0, as part of an ongoing investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"The sale of counterfeit U.S. brands on the Internet steals the creative work of others, costs our economy jobs and revenue and can threaten the health and safety of American consumers," said ICE Director John Morton. "The protection of intellectual property is a top priority for Homeland Security Investigations and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. We are dedicated to protecting the jobs, the income and the tax revenue that disappear when counterfeit goods are trafficked."

Unlike the hostage-to-events WikiLeaks, however, it seems the other torrent sites have drawn the connection: if the US is seizing domains of those selling pirated goods, it won't be long before it does the same to intellectual piracy transgressors. Hence, the exodus out of .COM to places like .ME Montenegro is well underway:

A sort of mass-exodus from US-controlled .COM domains is taking place, with dozens of sites registering alternate domains in nations where chances of persecution for association with copyright infringing activities is slim. This action has been sparked by the domain seizures in the United States, performed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that occurred just a week ago. Site owners are choosing domains which are controlled by nations that either don’t have strict copyright laws, or even locations that do have the laws but lack the resources to enforce them.

Demonoid, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, chose to leave their .COM domain behind completely in favor of a .ME domain operated by the nation of Montenegro. Others are, ironically, leaving the US, supposedly the “Land of the Free,” for China, a country well-known for their rampant censorship.

Gary Fung, owner of BitTorrent engine Isohunt, is based in Canada, however his own run-ins with the American film industry has driven him to reserve a backup .HK domain in case the US government decides to seize his .COM. “Countries like China censor for political reason, US with COICA will censor for copyright and commercial reason,” Fung told TorrentFreak. “It’ll be a chilling parallel put into serious question how the US should still be in charge of the much of the internet infrastructure like the root DNS, or how US can continue to claim as the model example for free-speaking democracy.”

Site owners like Fung are most concerned about the rationale behind the US domain seizures. Torrent-Finder.com, similar in function to Fung’s Isohunt, was targeted simply because they ended up on the MPAA and RIAA lists of “notorious markets” of copyright infringing material.

“For RIAA, MPAA’s slandering of us as rogue websites, it’s political PR and lobbying that has no basis in reality and ignorable,” Fung says. “Perhaps they should be educated in the many non-infringing uses of BitTorrent and P2P, or they risk listing every social media and sharing website as rogue.” Unless something changes for the better, Fung will be keeping his .HK domain in case his site is one of the next to be targeted by US government raids. And he’ll be joined by many others in that regard. Yes, site owners are leaving the United States in favor of China because they’ll have more freedom and less chance of persecution. How incredibly unbelievable and sad.

Seen any torrent trackers heading to Switzerland, Assange? What the heck he's doing mucking about in the likes of Switzerland flat out befuddles me. Take a hint from the pros, Assange, and hie thee to Montenegro if you want to escape this American dragnet:

Whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks has moved its website to Switzerland as it struggled to remain open in the face of official and corporate moves to cut its access to the internet. And there was speculation that an arrest of the site's founder Julian Assange might be imminent, after Swedish authorities refiled an international warrant with additional information requested by the Metropolitan Police...

The website moved to the Swiss address wikileaks.ch after the American company providing its domain name, EveryDNS.net, cut off service because cyber attacks were threatening the rest of its network. WikiLeaks had turned to EveryDNS and servers in Europe after Amazon stopped hosting the site on Thursday. Meanwhile, reports suggested that authorities in Paris were trying to ban French servers from hosting its database of leaked information.

It's interesting times for America's cyber-foes. Things will become doubly interesting if and when the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) becomes law Stateside. Undoubtedly, the US remains the 500-pound gorilla in cyberspace.

Hillary "Internet Freedom" Clinton's WikiLeaks Issue

Face it: we all have issues. However, it seems Missus Clinton's foibles are more high-profile than those of the rest of us. Here's yet another case in point. Just a few months removed from making a grandiose speech on the virtues of "Internet freedom" [picture above] in the wake of those dastardly Chinese clamping down on Google's violation of Chinese censorship laws, there's now apparently an Americans exception reserved for WikiLeaks. Unless you've been hiding in a cave somewhere between the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there has been a media firestorm over the leakage of an interesting set of State Department communications to major international newspapers like the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. Unfortunately, the ol' freedom 'n' democracy shtick is being contextually applied. If it's America's erstwhile rivals, the problem is one of dealing with "government censors." When it comes to the US government being at the receiving end of some "Internet freedom," however, it becomes an "illegal act" according to the secretary of state. Compare:

Hillary "Internet Freedom" Clinton (January 21, 2010): Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

Hillary "Stealing Classified Documents" Clinton (November 29, 2010): The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems. This Administration is advancing a robust foreign policy that is focused on advancing America’s national interests and leading the world in solving the most complex challenges of our time, from fixing the global economy, to thwarting international terrorism, to stopping the spread of catastrophic weapons, to advancing human rights and universal values. In every country and in every region of the world, we are working with partners to pursue these aims.

My, my, such legalistic verbiage. It sounds awfully familiar. Where have I heard such language before? Why, it's those famous Internet freedom violators the Chinese who've said similar things in their white paper on the Internet (Google, take note):

China adheres to rational and scientific law-making, and reserves space for Internet development. Relevant laws and regulations pertaining to basic Internet resource management, information transmission regulation, information security guarantee and other key aspects define the responsibilities and obligations of basic telecommunication business operators, Internet access service providers, Internet information service providers, government administrative organs, Internet users and other related bodies. The citizens' freedom and privacy of correspondence is protected by law, which stipulates at the same time that while exercising such freedom and rights, citizens are not allowed to infringe upon state, social and collective interests or the legitimate freedom and rights of other citizens. No organization or individual may utilize telecommunication networks to engage in activities that jeopardize state security, the public interest or the legitimate rights and interests of other people.

Oops, there went the digital exceptionalism bit. In the end, the US, China, and the rest are all on the same boat in citing similar reasons for curtailing unfettered Internet freedom. Further recall what Missus Clinton said in her bid for Internet freedom that seem strange in light on current US actions:

Hillary "Internet Freedom" Clinton (January 21, 2010): On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone.

The main points are these -

1. Whatever your opinion of WikiLeaks' actions as well as those of the US government in response, the idea that all of us netizens should have "equal access" to knowledge and ideas doesn't quite hold when it's the US having a taste of "Internet freedom";
2. The US still wants to exercise its sovereignty, as do the likes of China and other purported enemies of digital democracy. Accordingly, this demonstrates that most countries--including the United States--do feel obliged to rein in the supposedly extraterritorial "single Internet" features of the Internet if it so suits their purposes;
3. Similarly, the United States is citing its laws to enforce its will on foreign entities--sort of like Google in China, huh? As long as there is no clear global "Law of the Internet"--Google may want to change that (foolishly, I believe)--I guess we all must return to national law.

Channelling Daniel Drezner, then, I agree that there is no real hypocrisy being revealed by the difference between what America says during diplomatic discourse and its internal communications reveal as the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggests. Rather, the hypocrisy lies in the very notion of Internet freedom. When other countries (especially those unfriendly to America) perform cyber-censure by claiming to apply law, it's a violation of free speech. When the US attempts to do the same, it's an "illegal" act that must be brought to justice. The Chinese didn't even allude to throwing Google personnel in jail. Who's paranoid here?

The excuse that American personnel and informants are being put in danger doesn't wash, either. As Evgeny Morozov points out, cyber-dissidents supposedly empowered by "Internet freedom" face these dangers already [1, 2] instead of facing those which are more abstract at this point in time.

Ah well, you know ol' Missus Clinton. Let's just say that she's prone to using, how should I describe it, grandiose language. We all remember that chestnut of a quote while she was first lady, "This vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President." Nowadays we have a cyber-update of the same sentiment. With some American dirty laundry being aired out in public, "this disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity." In the end, the only clear result of this exercise may be the State department exercising more circumspection in its intra-agency communications since, embarrassingly enough, there is apparently a culture of leaking there. It's not quite a tight ship. Telling others to be guarded in their communications with Americans is nothing novel, obviously.

I guess what goes around comes around। It makes you wish Missus Clinton didn't start fooling around with "Internet freedom" since everybody knows who the joke is on this time. You can carve that in 50 tons of Tennessee marble.

UPDATE: Also see the State Department's letter to Julian Assange prior to the release of the cables. Same legalese banana.

The China vs Google Dust-Up, Live from London

On my walking route home from the LSE, I pass by the grandly named Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills on Victoria Street. Just this Monday, little did I know that China and the UK were conducting an "Internet Roundtable" inside. Naturally, the mention of China in the context of the Internet raises interesting questions. A few days ago, I discussed Google's new white paper where it argued that the "free flow of information" should become a free trade issue. (Our friends at the IELP offer more recent thoughts.) Let's just say I was not entirely convinced by Google.

It appears the Chinese used this event here in London as an opportunity to hit back at the "information imperialists" as some Chinese commentators so memorably dubbed the likes of Google. The main talking points remain the same: the Internet requires regulation, foreign firms a re welcome to conduct e-commerce in China as long as they follow PRC rules and regulations, etc. From still our favourite official publication, China Daily:

China will promote the opening up of cyberspace and welcome foreign firms as long as they abide by Chinese laws and respect traditional Chinese culture, said State Council Information Office Minister Wang Chen on Monday. On the sidelines of the Third China-UK Internet Roundtable, Wang told China Daily that Beijing is not afraid of the "mud" being thrown at China for its Internet administration. "We will do our best to explain," Wang said.

Wang's remarks come as Beijing faces mounting international accusations over its Internet administration and alleged hacker attacks. He said the government would strengthen Internet administration through law. "It's a common understanding that the Internet needs administration and governance," Wang said in his keynote speech to the roundtable, noting China is the "biggest victim of computer hacking".

Nearly 60 percent of Chinese Internet users, he said, were attacked by Trojan horse viruses or hackers in the first half of 2010. The country has about 439 million Internet users, or 39 percent of its population, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. "International society should fully understand and respect each country's situation and different considerations of online security, and regard each country's Internet development and administration with an objective, tolerant and realistic attitude," he said.

Only a few days ago, a US Congressional advisory group released a document alleging China Telecom diverted data from US military websites through its servers for 18 minutes on April 8.

In March, Google withdrew from Beijing, redirecting traffic to its service in Hong Kong. The move followed what the US-based Internet search engine claimed were Chinese hacker attacks, and its subsequent refusal to filter its search results as required by Chinese law.

In general, Wang told China Daily the Internet is "an engine of China's economic development" and welcomed foreign investment in its cyberspace. "The fact shows that foreign Internet companies have a bright future in China - as long as they abide by Chinese laws and respect traditional Chinese culture." China now has about 230 million bloggers and 277 million people surf the Internet on mobile phones, Wang said.

The scale of China's Internet market has reached 183 billion yuan ($27 billion), a year-on-year increase of nearly 32 percent, Wang said, adding that transaction volume of e-commerce has reached more than 3.6 trillion yuan. Wang said he is a fan of online shopping, and found it's more convenient and cheaper to buy books and music albums online.

The PRC's ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming addressed the BIS crowd, too. For more on China's policy towards the Internet, also see a white paper the PRC released last year.

My Way or the Huawei: Security & Chinese Tech

Poor, poor Huawei. All it wants is to sell routers and other telecoms hardware in the West, but it keeps getting caught up in the great game of geopolitics between America and China. To make a long story short, the recurring theme is one of US regulators barring Huawei from doing business Stateside over purported security concerns. Not only does is deal in equipment crucial to the information backbone of the Internet, but more sinister motives are attributed to it being unable to fully disprove that its ownership includes Red Army interests. In an interesting twist to the IPE notion of "sovereignty at bay" which in its traditional sense involved American companies doing the bidding of the US government overseas, Huawei is suspected of being a Trojan horse to pry away American trade secrets and the like.

This is the third time I am retelling basically the same story, albeit with different antagonists each time. The first time around, the US Congress effectively discouraged Huawei from buying 3Com (also see BusinessWeek's Bruce Einhorn). Wary of this experience, Huawei and another Chinese equipment manufacturer, ZTE, teamed up with American partners in a bid to sell telecoms equipment to service provider Sprint Nextel to assuage concerns over national security grounds. But alas, that effort came to naught over the same grounds. Does anyone still buy America's free trade shtick?

But wait, it gets even worse. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Huawei is in hot water over not clearing a measly $2 million acquisition of a Bay Area start-up with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), the interagency body that vets foreign investors:

Huawei Technologies Ltd., whose efforts to buy big U.S. companies have been stymied by security concerns, has landed in hot water in Washington for acquiring a small technology firm without first running the deal by the government. In May, the Chinese telecom gear maker paid $2 million to acquire staff and intellectual property of 3Leaf Systems, a Bay Area start-up that developed technology for making collections of server computers work together like a more powerful machine.

Huawei and former 3Leaf executives say they didn't think the acquisition required a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, because they didn't buy all of the company's assets. The inter-agency body reviews acquisitions that could have national security implications. But Pentagon officials, who found out about the acquisition after it was completed, disagreed and have taken the unusual step of asking the company to retroactively clear the deal with CFIUS, people familiar with the matter said.

The dustup over such a small purchase is a reminder that U.S. security officials are keeping Huawei on a short leash. Huawei has grown quickly overseas to become the world's No. 3 seller of telecom network equipment, but security concerns have thus far kept it from completing major acquisitions or winning big contracts in the U.S. market.

Attorneys representing Huawei submitted a CFIUS application for the 3Leaf deal late last week, company executives said. Retroactive reviews have only happened in a handful of cases. If CFIUS decides the deal poses a threat to U.S. national security, the panel could force Huawei to sell the company or limit its use of the technology it purchased. The Treasury Department, which speaks for the interagency panel, declined to comment.

Huawei executives insist they weren't trying to hide anything from the government and note that they filed with the Commerce Department seeking to classify the technology under export control requirements before the company completed the acquisition. The Department of Commerce does not have the authority to stop an acquisition. "From the outset, we've been very transparent," said Bill Plummer, vice president of external affairs for Huawei USA. "At that time the perception was because of the unique nature of the activity and the acquisition of the patents that it simply wouldn't trigger a CFIUS review..."

Huawei bought intellectual property and hired 16 of the roughly 50 employees at 3Leaf, leaving behind hard assets like buildings and equipment for creditors. CFIUS doesn't review patent purchases or hiring, but the panel felt Huawei effectively bought the company, people familiar with the matter said.

The incident comes as Huawei seeks to repair its image with U.S. officials. In an effort to crack into the U.S. market, the company has hired a bevy of former U.S. officials and lobbyists to make the case that it doesn't pose a threat to U.S. security. Stewart Baker, an attorney with Steptoe and Johnson and former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, said the incident shows Huawei has a ways to go. "At a minimum, it shows they still don't understand Washington," he said.

Politics can be an issue, so companies need to be conservative, said Nancy McLernon, chief executive of the Washington-based Organization for International Investment, an association representing foreign companies that invest in the U.S. "Politics and the overreaction of political concerns factor in a great deal with these companies," Ms. McLernon said. Huawei has been accused of having close ties to the Chinese government and military. Huawei has repeatedly denied such links and says it will open its equipment and software to third-party inspection. Its gear is widely used in Europe.

Huawei executives continue to build their presence in the U.S., having closed deals with smaller operators like Clearwire Corp. and Cox Communications Inc. Since creating its North American headquarters in 2001, the company has opened 13 offices and eight R&D centers throughout North America. Its American work force doubled in the past year to more than 1,000, and executives plan to hire several hundred more people in 2011...

"To build up your reputation, you have to do that step by step," said Charlie Chen, senior vice president for North American marketing and development for Huawei USA. The company is committed to growing in the U.S., "no matter how long it takes," he said.

Let me put it this way: 3Com was a pittance of a deal at $2.2 billion compared with America's world-leading external deficit which it needs to fund via foreign inflows of this sort. What more a lousy $2 million acquisition? Magnitude aside, the problem with Huawei is that it isn't obliged to report its ownership structure as a private entity. Although there are constant rumours that it will soon have an IPO, there is no firm sign of this happening yet. Until then, there will always be a cloud of suspicion hanging over it that I don't think will be mitigated by constant reiterations about not being under the influence of the military. Whether true or false, the impression remains there.

When there's no getting over that rainbow. When the smallest of deals won't come through.

Google's Free Flow of Information Crusade, Cont'd

[NOTE: This is a continuation of the seemingly never-ending run-ins between Internet giant Google and emerging economic giant China.] It was perhaps only a matter of time before Google claimed that Internet censorship constituted a violation of international trade law. In November of last year I featured a report by our friends at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) arguing that China's censorship is a violation of services trade provisions under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Since then, matters have gotten progressively worse between the two, culminating in Google scaling down its mainland operations and Secretary of State Clinton making a not-so-veiled speech on the importance of Internet freedoms. While we have offered our own take on these occurrences in Foreign Affairs, it appears the Google folks have mounted twin counteroffensives.

First, they have a new article out in Foreign Affairs as well that makes the case for a "digital disruption" that I still believe overstates how the Internet has changed the world. Second, the Google Public Policy blog points us in the direction of a white paper that claims "[i]n addition to infringing human rights, governments that block the free flow of information on the Internet are also blocking trade and economic growth." However, I should of course point out that the white paper does not actually make the case that blocking the Internet hinders economic growth.

Which leaves us with the ECIPE theme of censorship being a trade violation. The paper begins with an urging to get the US and EU to "break down barriers." In this post, I will take special exception to the third point...

To realize the full potential of the Internet as a global marketplace and platform for innovation, policymakers in the United States, the European Union, and elsewhere should pursue three steps to break down barriers to free trade and Internet commerce:

● Focus on and publicly highlight as unfair trade barriers those practices by governments that restrict or disrupt the flow of online information services.
● Take appropriate action where government restrictions on the free flow of online
information violate international trade rules.
● Establish new international trade rules under bilateral, regional, and multilateral agreements that provide further assurances in favor of the free flow of information on the Internet.

Elsewhere in the paper, the authors argue that the United States should pursue more explicit references to the free flow of information via the Internet in trade deals as per existing clauses in the still non-operational Korea-US FTA. The paper makes the case that most WTO documents predate the rise of the Internet, so Internet-specific provisions should be included in the Doha Development Agenda. Also, it suggests that the same should be done with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (The authors erroneously fail to point out that the TPP is already operational.) While I am a Google user--witness this blog--I sometimes doubt whether Google understands IPE. For instance, did it ever occur to the authors that the already much-delayed Doha round would become even more difficult to complete if the US started haranguing other WTO members about the inclusion of Internet censorship provisions? Even more far-fetched is Google's stated desire to foist a more stringent GATS on those wishing to enter the WTO like Russia:

If the Doha Round moves forward and negotiations proceed on trade in services, free flow of information should be on the table. There are also opportunities at the WTO in the context of negotiations regarding new Members. Russia is in the final stages of its WTO accession negotiations, and various Middle Eastern countries are negotiating accession too. Many of these countries impose onerous restrictions on the Internet, so pursuing specific agreements in the context of their accessions makes sense.

This sort of American exceptionalism is worryingly removed from reality. I simply do not think these folks understand the difficulty of what they propose. The WTO being a consensus-based organization, the US would have to persuade the likes of China and other erstwhile enemies of digital freedom to assent to such a regime. The authors also mention that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should make reference to free trade in information. Which, again, would be great if the TPP didn't contain Vietnam among those negotiating to join. The paper itself notes that "Vietnam has blocked Facebook since last year, and is threatening to filter more sites in Internet cafes in Hanoi with a new regulation, to be fully effective in 2011." So good luck there.

Bottom line: it's a lot of wishy-washy stuff that can only make life more difficult for Google. By identifying too closely with the US government at a time when America's capacity to establish international rules is no longer what it was, Google runs the risk of being perceived by others as an American policy tool (if it isn't already). I would be very surprised if Google in concert with other US Internet firms successfully pushed for the successful inclusion of these rules in plutilateral or multilateral deals. Moreover, plans to introduce Internet freedom-style clauses in WTO Doha and the TPP are simply unrealistic. This white paper is a wish list of things that are likely to remain just that--wishes.

Ah, but enough of me. Here's what they have to say on why disrupting the Internet may violate trade rules:

IV. How disrupting the free flow of information can violate international trade rules

Governments often pursue restrictions on accessibility of certain kinds of information in ways that directly hurt international trade and the international trading system. Governments in the United States, the EU and elsewhere have a variety of existing trade agreements – principally the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) – that can and should be applied where appropriate to combat restriction and disruption of information delivered by the Internet.

The GATS has been in place since 1995, and expands the WTO rules from trade in goods to trade in services, from financial services to telecommunications and computer services, including cloud and other Internet-based services. Indeed, decisions by the WTO Appellate Body in recent cases, especially in the case of China’s regulation of the import of various media content, demonstrate that information restrictions are subject to GATS disciplines. The rules in GATS can and should be used to help constrain government behaviors limiting information flow.

The GATS imposes restrictions on the way that governments can regulate trade in services, a broad category including knowledge- or information-based trade. In particular, GATS requires WTO Members to:

● Be transparent about government actions affecting trade in services;
● Provide judicial or independent review of administrative decisions affecting trade in services;
● Reasonably, objectively, and impartially administer rules affecting trade in services;
● Provide non-discriminatory treatment, including treating foreign firms no less favorably than domestic firms;
● Ensure that foreign service suppliers have reasonable and non-discriminatory access to public telecommunications networks, including to move information within and across borders; and
● Provide fair market access for services and service providers.

There are clearly exceptional cases when pledges of transparency, review, impartial administration, non-discrimination and market access will not be followed. But the WTO negotiators set clear limits on the ability of Members to invoke such exceptions. For example, a “public order” exception is only available in situations where a genuine and sufficiently serious threat is posed to one of the fundamental interests of society. And, in order to justify any derogation from the rules, governments must:

● Show that the measure is necessary to achieve a stated objective (that is not simply “public order” but rather a serious threat to society);
● Not have any “reasonably available” less restrictive alternative; and
● Apply the measure without prejudice.

It is now up to other Members to ensure that exceptions do not become the rule -- protecting Members’ right to pursue legitimate policy goals while preventing the broad application of exceptions that would undermine the value of the GATS. Trade officials should continue to enforce international trade agreements, including the legal framework described in more detail in the Technical Appendix to this paper, to promote the free flow of information.

A Bad Idea? Using Facebook to Catch Tax Cheats

Dear readers, let me begin by saying that I am on Facebook not by choice but by social pressure. In marketing, one of the observed phenomena in the diffusion of innovations is precisely others continually asking you to adopt something. And so it was with Facebook: I just felt sufficiently harassed that I joined Facebook even if I almost never visit it except to reply to queries and friend requests. As a courtesy to others, you will often be made to do things you do not necessarily find necessary.

However, there are more sinister or creative ways to use Facebook that I'm now discovering aside from well-documented instances of those snooping for private information to facilitate identity theft. Earlier this year, I received a seemingly innocent message on Facebook from someone I didn't know inquiring whether I was in touch with so-and-so. This struck me as unusual insofar as this person had a profile that was easily accessible. Therefore, I told the the person inquiring to look up so-and-so's easily accessible profile. The next message explained a whole lot more: This stranger turned out to be a bank employee claiming an "urgent" need to get in touch. Sniffing around, I discovered that local banks have developed the practice of using Facebook to track down delinquent accounts like, presumably, so-and-so who was my Facebook friend. I cut off correspondence then and there as I do not believe Facebook is the proper forum for such sneakiness.

Similarly, I nearly forgot to post about this interesting article concerning how the new Philippines government aims to use social networking sites to corral tax cheats and improve collection [!] Again, it boils down to persons' willingness to snitch on their "friends," or otherwise use social networking sites to pass information about alleged tax cheats. The latter raises interesting safety issues, among other things:

The new Philippine government of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino is enlisting Facebook and Twitter in an ambitious effort to close the country’s gaping budget deficit. Filipinos are fervent users of new media, leading the world in text messaging. Cesar Purisima, the finance secretary, wants citizens to tweet cases of tax evasion and corruption among tax collectors or report them on Facebook.

Mr Aquino and his team must tackle a budget deficit that hit a record 3.9 per cent of gross domestic product last year. They want to reduce the gap to 2 per cent within three years, mainly through better and more honest tax collection. The campaign comes as Asians increasingly use social networking sites, in ways that not only change how they relate with family and friends but also with government.

Asia has more than 64m Facebook users, according to GreyReview, a website that tracks social media in Asia. The Philippines has about 11m Facebook users, the most in Asia after Indonesia, which has just over 18m. Observers credit new social media with helping Mr Aquino, 50, score a landslide in the recent presidential polls. His Facebook account – which features user-created videos urging people to vote for him – generated 1m fans shortly after it was created, easily becoming one of the country’s most popular sites...

Philippine officials are hoping that the outrage over widespread tax evasion that has crimped the government’s ability to deliver basic services will encourage people to report suspected cases of tax evasion and smuggling to the authorities. The government is also asking citizens to send photos of homes, cars and other properties of tax officials suspected of living lavish lifestyles way beyond their government salaries.

Social networking experts said popular goodwill towards Mr Aquino might encourage people to respond favourably to the tax appeal. “Users who are usually allergic to government exhortations in the traditional media are more accommodating on the web, perhaps because many of the content are user-generated and rely on viral distribution,” said Justine Espina-Letargo, a multimedia journalist and expert on online political campaigning.

Again, there are many security issues here for those sharing potentially incriminating evidence. I, for one, do not believe Facebook is the ideal platform for this sort of activity.

Our Foreign Affairs Piece on US Digital Statecraft

Dear readers, in case you haven't come across it yet, do read my contribution with professor of marketing Betsy Gelb of the University of Houston on Getting Digital Statecraft Right. If you're a regular reader of Foreign Affairs, it shouldn't be hard to miss as it's been the main feature on their front page over the weekend to date! (I will save this image for posterity.)

For someone who's been sometimes critical of the United States in the past, I find myself in the unusual position of explaining how the US government can better position its "21st Century Statecraft" effort. Originally introduced in May 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it was further detailed during a speech given in the wake of the Google in China incident. While we see promise in smaller-scale initiatives as you will read, we too are wary of its potential for being perceived as a broader-scale one that triggers concerns about "information imperialism." Our colleagues at the IELP have expressed similar wariness about how high-faluting talk about "Internet freedom" is contradicted by the US still not resolving the online gaming ban which has hurt the tiny island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. And there's also the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement looming, so it's high time the US government practiced what it preaches.

However, Sam duPont of the New Democrat Network (NDN) expresses caution about our work. Aside from replies I made on the Foreign Affairs site itself, let me add three things: (1) we knew about the 2009 speech being the introduction of the idea, but we referred to the January 2010 one as it is more detailed as to the effort's specifics. For those who regularly publish academic work, you're certainly familiar with having to accommodate editing for clarity and word length. Unfortunately, the sense of the original sentence may have been lost due to no fault of our editing friends at FA, making it appear to some readers as if we thought "21st Century Statecraft" only came into effect in January 2010.

(2) Being neither American nor a partisan, I do believe I can add more of an international perspective to this effort. How do we in the rest of the world view it? In tech slang, I am not a fanboy. Indeed, I find it odd that we would be faulted when we are trying to suggest ways to help improve this effort. By contrast, Evgeny Morozov is far more critical [1, 2]; as are bloggers of the Economist [1, 2]. What is to differentiate digital statecraft from, say, the George W. Bush Foundation's Cyber Dissidents programme? We make suggestions.

(3) "Small wins" also need to be considered in light on the State Department's expertise, which is international relations. You will have a difficult time convincing many that it is ideally positioned to administer several small-scale initiatives since that is not where its comparative advantage lies. Rather, our suggestion is not to engage in the lion's share of these efforts directly given State's limited time and resources but rather to direct them in conjunction with firms, NGOs, and the like.

For the accuracy's sake, here is the unedited original which we submitted. I hope it shed more light on the three points above -

On 15 January 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a wide-ranging speech on Internet freedom at the Washington, D.C. Newseum. Coincidentally or otherwise, this speech immediately followed heated debate over Google’s announcement that it would no longer bow to Chinese wishes that Google self-censor its search results in the mainland. During the speech, she related an idea for “21st century statecraft” that envisions the potential of modern information and communication technologies (ICT) to facilitate social and economic development by providing access to knowledge, markets, capital, and opportunity. All the while, America’s formidable diplomatic, economic, and technological resources would be harnessed to meet these desirable objectives.

Such a speech prompts examination of previous American attempts to bring progress to other nations via technology. We offer three as cautionary examples. All three illustrate one point: that U.S. entities undertaking such projects have often lacked a realistic picture of what could be accomplished by transplanting an American vision beyond its borders.

Fordlandia was Henry Ford’s effort in 1928 to recreate his personal vision of an unblemished Midwest town in the Brazilian rainforest. Commercially, his interest was in achieving vertical integration by sourcing rubber for automobile tires not from British Malaya but from his own Amazon plantation. This unique amalgamation of agriculture and industry was micromanaged to the nth degree, with Ford personally designing menus replete with soya-based foods as he viewed soya as the material of the future. He also prescribed square dances and other wholesome forms of entertainment.

Apparently, Brazilian workers did not take kindly to Fordist social engineering; an ironically named “Island of Innocence” featuring bars, brothels, and nightclubs plying forbidden wine, women, and song soon appeared beyond Fordlandia’s limits to serve its workers. The commercial outcome was no better; Fordlandia was eventually abandoned as caterpillars common to the Amazon but not Malaya feasted on the rubber trees.

Our second example is a current one, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program of digital visionary Nicholas Negroponte. He boldly proclaimed that OLPC would distribute 150 million laptops to disadvantaged children in the developing world by 2008, yet by mid-2010 had distributed about 1% as many. Echoing the State Department’s aims for cross-sector collaboration, OLPC combined the expertise of American academia—its foremost engineering university MIT—with the support of firms such as Google, AMD, and News Corporation, together with backing from the United Nations. The machine itself featured groundbreaking specifications for energy efficiency, shock resistance, and connectivity.

From the outset, however, OLPC was hampered by a strong pedagogical vision favoring “learning by doing” via digital media. With messianic fervor, terms like “building a movement” and “revolution” were bandied. However, these messages were greeted with alarm by OLPC’s putative customers—educational departments of developing countries. China was naturally wary of OLPC becoming a political movement given such rhetoric, while India branded its anti-rote-learning philosophy as “pedagogically suspect.” Then and there, governments representing a third of humanity were lost. Lacking the ability to meet the marketing challenges of distribution, after-sales service, and integration into educational ministries’ existing programs, OLPC has floundered, apparently motivated to change the world rather than supply technology on that world’s terms.

Our third example, also contemporary, is the strong U.S. support for the Internet search giant Google, whose founder, Sergey Brin, asked Washington to take a robust stand regarding China’s Internet censorship practices. The firm first positioned itself not only as a for-profit entity hoping to increase its user base and therefore advertising opportunities in this huge market, but also as a pioneer showing the world that free communication represents an American value to which citizens of other nations are entitled.

Although he is unable to link instances of hackers attempting to access e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists with official PRC involvement, Brin nevertheless has mentioned both in a manner which suggests their interconnectedness, all the while bemoaning PRC censorship. In time, Google hoped its involvement would result in greater Internet freedom for Chinese citizens. However, the PRC has made few concessions over Google’s newfound discomfort with censorship. Narratives about political freedoms marching hand in hand with economic ones are proving to be naïve.

Hoping unrealistically to develop other nations by U.S.-directed methods appears as the common thread here, raising doubts about the reality of Secretary Clinton’s proclamation that “the spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet” and her perceived need “for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.” Insofar as the U.S. seeks support for its own ideas regarding the use of technology for development, international relations rather than a supraterritorial notion of cyberspace will help to make or break the effort. Hence, the U.S. should treat its international partners’ concerns and aspirations with respect by adopting a more nuanced perspective. For instance, the Chinese government has just released its White Paper on “The Internet in China” which can set the stage for constructive dialogue.

A first step, then, should be an internal look at cyber-related U.S. policies that have international significance. For instance, American protestations against censorship would seem more convincing if it were not for its own policies involving disparate arms of government that actually restrict Internet freedom. Two instances come to mind.

One involves the questionable prohibition of cross-border trade in Internet gambling. In 2004, the World Trade Organization ruled in favor of Antigua and Barbuda against the United States when the latter banned online gambling services emanating from the twin-island nation, whose population is 85,000. Despite losing on appeal and the virtual destruction of Antigua’s online gambling industry in the meantime, America has yet to satisfactorily resolve this ruling and should do so. Referring to the subprime crisis, Congressman Barney Frank commented that existing U.S. law stops individuals from gambling in the thousands with their own money but allows financial institutions to gamble in the billions with other people’s money.

A second example, so far largely unpublicized, is the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In the view of many, this is not a conventional trade agreement but one meant to strengthen intellectual property laws internationally with little consideration of public benefit. The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property representing prominent academics and activists worldwide believes ACTA would encourage Internet service providers to police users, disconnect users without due process, and globalize anti-circumvention programs that threaten innovation and competition. Hence, ACTA fuels concerns that the U.S. cares more about the commercial interests of its major copyright holders than about nurturing the creative potential of global netizens.

What can be done besides discouraging actions that make the U.S. seem less than sincere about extending freedom via technology? Organizational theorist Karl Weick highlights the virtue of seeking “small wins” in which broad social challenges are better portrayed as a series of narrower, more tractable ones. Painting 21st century statecraft as an American-led ideological struggle is unwise insofar as it may consume excess resources, mobilize opposition by those who perceive American pushiness, and demoralize supporters in the event of high-profile failure. Weick suggests that the small, well-formed gesture trumps the grandiose, whose tendency is to overpromise but underdeliver.

Interestingly, several American initiatives already demonstrate small wins. These include the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) introducing non-Latin top-level domains so that international users can more easily navigate the Web. As part of 21st century statecraft, the State Department highlights examples such as using cell phones to send donations for victims of the Haitian earthquake and to ensure the anonymity of those reporting criminal activity of drug cartels along the Mexican border. Such actions can not only build goodwill but also test the scalability of projects, which can be undertaken in other contexts where similar social difficulties obtain. Furthermore, small-scale experimentation that allows trial and error without raising excessive concern about “American interference” appears likeliest to succeed in contexts removed from international relations, the traditional purview of the State Department.

In sum, we see development thwarted, not enhanced, by social engineering based on unrealistic assessments of the priorities of other nations. A series of small wins for ICT seems realistic, but the State Department may lack a comparative advantage in this domain, and if so should delegate responsibility to those with experience in smaller scale initiatives. Otherwise, micromanagement can overwhelm. Given 21st century statecraft’s emphasis, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler aptly suggest in Reinventing Government that government should steer, not row—and quite possibly consult with firms and social enterprises as to its direction. By forsaking go-it-alone grand designs in favor of gradual progress together with key stakeholders, America increases its chances of fostering ICT- based development while consigning social engineering to the dustbin of history.

We have some fairly exciting work on the drawing board--as much as academic work gets, that is--to extend this line of research as we have only detailed a few of the many considerations involved. Many problems we face are interdisciplinary; for example we combine IR and marketing knowledge to tackle this issue here. Other interconnected problems can benefit from such an approach. For instance, economists wary of global economic imbalances make sensible suggestions that increasing demand in surplus countries is key. But, how is that to be done? Again, we have combined IPE and marketing in another contribution.

Of course, I am grateful to Foreign Affairs for publishing this piece since, as much fun as blogging can be, it is an ephemeral medium at the end of the day.

US-Led Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is Vile

If anything else, you must admit that the Yanquis are persistent. With the coming of the so-called information age, a concern which has been near and dear to many US firms has been intellectual property rights enforcement (henceforth IP enforcement). The essence of the American concern is simple: with a modicum of effort online, it is not particularly difficult to "pirate" books, films, music, shows, and video games. For instance, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) cites an Innovation Policy Institute study that claims losses to the recording industry amount to some $12.5 billion worldwide from physical and online music piracy.

Aside from not being particularly keen on the apparently endless proliferation of song-and-dance bimbettes, gangsta rappers, and other exemplars of high American culture, a more serious concern of mine is the method behind these studies. For instance, the Innovation and Policy Institute makes some fairly heroic (and obviously self-supporting) assumptions. First, they claim that 20% of those currently pirating music would pay for it without the benefit of substantially justifying where this figure comes from. Second, they blithely assume that these would-be converts to legal downloads would be willing to pay an assumed "Legitimate World and U.S on-line price of $0.99 per downloaded song" (see table 2). Again, there's the implicitly Amerocentric assumption that international music listeners would be willing to pay that price when (a) most physical music products are marketed at lower prices worldwide and (b) the price quoted is more reminiscent of that being charged by US online music stores like Apple iTunes.

Now, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the latest in a long line of US-led efforts to preserve software rents largely at the behest of media titans represented by RIAA and the like. ACTA is not a trade agreement in the conventional understanding as it deals solely with IP issues. While essentially all of the counterparties involved in negotiating ACTA are developed country peers of the US, the key thing to remember is that, when enforced, ACTA would operate outside of existing global bodies dealing with intellectual property rights. Why is this important? Being the acknowledged architect of many international institutions, a recurrent criticism has been that of America continually devising more regimes if existing regimes are not deemed welcoming enough to US interests. For instance, while there already was a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) prior to the creation of the WTO, the US lobbied hard for the inclusion of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) since America didn't deem the WIPO stringent enough on enforcing US claims worldwide. Even arch-globalizers like Jagdish Bhagwati and Martin Wolf have criticized this excessive stringency on IP (more on this in a minute), and highly controversial applications are too numerous to list here alike the case of access to drugs for HIV-AIDS sufferers in the Global South.

In IPE, there is a phenomenon called "forum shopping" in which countries attempt to gain traction on pet issues by scouring international organizations for the most favourable legal opinion. Given its diminishing though still substantial power in agenda setting, the US has not only forum shopping but also forum creating abilities. That is, it shows little compunction in, well, dumping international organizations it itself often created if they prove to be insufficient in enforcing American interests. Perceptions of still-rampant piracy by RIAA and the like are now spurring the US government to (again) seek something via ACTA which is even more stringent than WTO-TRIPS (which, in turn, effectively superseded WIPO).

Development observers should particularly note that many developing countries are already wary of ACTA's implications. The US hopes that signing on developed countries would ratchet pressure on developing countries to do the same. That is, as developed countries adopt stricter regimes, they will feel unduly compromised by those who don't and demand that they do so. The South Centre has an informative primer on how developing countries, especially the likes of Brazil and India which have always been active players on global governance issues, are looking warily at this latest IP gimmick in a long line of IP gimmicks:

Though at present ACTA is being negotiated only between 11 parties, it is of concern for the developing countries because they could be required to enforce ACTA provisions through cross-referencing in bilateral free trade agreements with developed countries and in WTO accession agreements. The countries that are negotiating ACTA accounts for about 70 per cent of world trade. Hence, application of TRIPS plus enforcement standards in these countries [like ACTA] could lead to targeting products from developing countries as counterfeit goods, since the ACTA envisages any form of IPR infringement as counterfeiting.

This is illustrated by requests for detaining shipments of soymeal from Argentina in European ports on the request of Monsanto Corporation on the ground that the soymeal contained a gene over which Monsanto has a patent in Europe, though it did not have a patent in Argentina where the soymeal was produced [see here].

Further, the broad scope of border measures under ACTA that also require customs seizures of goods in transit can have a severe impact on the trade of developing countries. This can also impede the ability of developing countries to use the public health related flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement that would enable them to import affordable generic medicines for ensuring access to medicines for their population. This has been shown in the seizure of genetic drugs produced legitimately in India when they were in transit in European airports (especially in the Netherlands) when these medicines were in transit on the way to Brazil, Africa, etc.

ACTA is at the centre of the TRIPS plus IP enforcement agenda that is being pushed by developed countries through various multilateral and bilateral forums such as the World Customs Organization (WCO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), INTERPOL, WHO-IMPACT, and bilateral FTAs and EPAs. The provisions in ACTA would tend to set the template for TRIPS plus IP enforcement provisions that are being pushed through these various channels.

Therefore, developing countries should question the legitimacy of the ACTA negotiations and also highlight in multilateral forums how such negotiations are undermining the existing balance between IP and public policy issues in respect of food security, access to medicines and access to knowledge.

Developing countries should also closely examine the nature of institutional relationship between ACTA and multilateral organizations like WIPO and WTO, with the objective of ensuring that such institutional relations do not promote an unbalanced IP enforcement agenda through technical and legislative assistance provided by these organizations. Moreover, there is a need for awareness of this issue to be developed in the capitals and greater dialogue among developing countries on this issue beyond the ambit of the Geneva based missions. This would be particularly useful in helping developing countries being better informed about the grand strategy behind IP enforcement in bilateral negotiations with developed countries.

Supporting trade is already such a difficult cause. Many third world folks like me are not insuperably opposed to trade, but the US sure makes it difficult to argue for trade when the deck is often stacked so unfavourably against poor countries. In the words of one of America's most cherished entertainers, "Oops I Did It Again"--and you can bet the US is not that innocent in the trade realm.

Turning Chinese: The Great Firewall of...Australia

Ah, yes, protecting innocent minds from the evils of the Internet. China famously employs an alleged 30,000 censors to stop all sorts of filth from contaminating the minds of the people. Apparently, these sorts of measures are no longer just fashionable with authoritarian regimes, but even in the outback as Australia gears up for (ostensibly) controlling child pornography and other forms of degeneracy. In the Aussie case, the digital czar is one Stephen Conroy. From TIME:

The concept of government-backed web censorship is usually associated with nations where human rights and freedom of speech are routinely curtailed. But if Canberra's plans for a mandatory Internet filter go ahead, Australia may soon become the first Western democracy to join the ranks of Iran, China and a handful of other nations where access to the Internet is restricted by the state.

Plans for a mandatory Internet filter have been a long-term subject of controversy since they were first announced by Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, in May 2008 as part of an $106 million "cybersafety plan." The plan's stated purpose is to protect children when they go online by preventing them from stumbling on illegal material like child pornography. To do this, Conroy's Ministry has recommended blacking out about 10,000 websites deemed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to be so offensive that they are categorized as 'RC,' or Refused Classification. (See pictures of Chinese mourning the loss of Google.)

The government won't reveal an official list of the URLs on the current blacklist, but Conroy's office says it includes sites containing child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act...

Since then, criticism of the proposed Internet filter has escalated. "Nobody likes it," says Scott Ludlam, a senator from the Australian Greens Party. "Everyone from the communications industry to child protection rights and online civil liberties groups think this idea is deeply flawed." Throughout 2009 GetUp!, an internet-based political activism organization, launched an advertising campaign to raise public awareness about the government's proposal.

In February, Anonymous, a community of Internet users, which include hackers, shut down the Australian Parliament's web site in their second attack against the filter, which they called "Operation: Titstorm" — a reference to the sexual content that the filter will be blocking. Save the Children has questioned the efficacy of the filter in protecting children, and in March, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders listed Australia as a country that's "under surveillance" in its annual "Internet Enemies" report, which rounds up the "worst violators of freedom of expression on the Net."

And while search engines Google and Yahoo! got into hot water in China over their willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate the PRC (at least initially), they are of a different mind in Australia. Insofar as Australia's mind control regime slows down searchable items, the quality of search results as well as the speed of their retrieval may suffer:

But the most high-profile criticism of the filter has so far been from net giants Google and Yahoo. In March, Google wrote to the Australian government with concerns that the scope of the filter was too wide. The search engine also warned it may slow down search speed. "Filtering may give a false sense of security to parents, it could damage Australia's international reputation, and it can be easily circumvented," the California company wrote in a submission to Conroy's Department of Broadband Communications and Digital Economy...

Indeed, only a cluster of Christian groups and child safety advocates have come out as supporting the filter. In a June 5 poll conducted on the web site of the Sydney Morning Herald, 99% of the 88,645 people who responded to the survey said they were against the Internet filter. Nevertheless, Conroy told the Sun-Herald in May that the policy "will be going ahead...''

Many say the biggest problem with the plan is that it simply won't work. "I don't see the point of blocking a site that no one would have come across, and making the criminals aware of the fact they are being watched. I am much more interested in seeing the Australian Federal Police work with international law enforcement agencies in tracking the site," Ludham of the Greens Party says. Jarrod Trevathan, a technology lecturer and researcher at James Cook University, agrees. "Once people know their site is being blocked they will just open up another URL, and then the filter will have to block that URL. Eventually the blocked list will contain countless URLs which will drastically slow down the speed of the Internet..."

Still, it's hard to see why the government is pressing ahead with a scheme that, in the view of many, will do more harm than good. "It's like trying to ban burglaries by banning pictures of crowbars," says Geordie Guy, vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a non-profit national organization that has been vehemently opposed to the filter since its conception. "You stop burglaries the same way you stop pedophilia — by catching the perpetrators. If the government closes these websites than the [Australian Federal Police] will find it harder to track the real criminals."

The qualm many have isn't over freedom of speech per se but the implementation of the scheme. Still, it may portend even more similar efforts worldwide.

Internet History: Non-Latin Top-Level Domains Live

I just wanted to make a quick note of this momentous occasion. While web pages using non-Latin characters have been in existence for quite a while, web addresses using wholly non-Latin characters have not. Again, this situation reflects lock-in effects of the Internet's heritage as a system for guaranteeing continued communication among US defence agencies in the event of a nuclear attack. The Cold War is long gone, but the pervasiveness of top-level domains (TLDs) in Latin characters remains.

Well, this situation may be about to change for the better. Unnoticed to many in the hullabaloo of turbulent markets is that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has finally begun implementing the use of non-Latin characters in TLDs--our .coms, .nets, and .orgs. Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Korean characters will soon be in wider use. The ICANN blog has an informative entry as well as a video concerning the time-consuming process of making this much-needed technical change. At any rate, the BBC identifies Arabic sites as the first out of the chute:

Arab nations are leading a "historic" charge to make the world wide web live up to its name. Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts.

The move is the first step to allow web addresses in many scripts including Chinese, Thai and Tamil. More than 20 countries have requested approval for international domains from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). It said the new domains were "available for use now" although it admitted there was still some work to do before they worked correctly for everyone. However, it said these were "mostly formalities".

Icann's senior director for internationalised domain names, Tina Dam, told BBC News that this has been "the most significant day" since the launch of the internet, adding that "it's been a very big day for Icann, more so for the three Arabic countries that were the first to be introduced".

The introduction of the first web names using so-called country code top-level domains (CCTLDs) is the culmination of several years of work by the organisation. Previously, websites could use some non-Latin letters, but the country codes such as .eg for Egypt had to be written in Latin script.

The three new suffixes will allow web addresses to be completely written in native characters. "All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left," said Kim Davies of Icann in a blog post. One of the first websites with a full Arabic address is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications.

Egypt's communication and information technology minister Tarek Kamal told the Associated Press that three Egyptian companies were the first to receive registrar licenses for the '.masr' domain, written in Arabic. Mr Kamal described the development as a "milestone in internet history". Masr means Egypt in Arabic.

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, had already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not necessarily work on all computers. Ms Dam explained that the change was "not about shutting non-Arabic or non-Chinese speakers out of the internet...It's about including that large part of our world into the internet today." She said there had previously been a risk the internet might have started to split. "The chances are people would start creating their own internets, where it was only in Chinese, Arabic, Thai or whatever," she said.

ICANN is making a big noise about this change, claiming the availability of non-Latin TLDs is the biggest change to the Internet since its birth some 40 years ago. Certainly, it's a good faith move to make the Internet seem less dominated by American interests via ICANN to permit wider use by those who wish to go online but have limited or no real use for learning English. Call it a welcome leap forward for Internet governance.