[8554] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Open Letter to the CIX -- Trade Association?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Raisch, The Internet Company)
Mon Nov 22 14:09:53 1993
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:51:50 -0800 (PST)
From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
Reply-To: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
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Open Letter to the Board of Directors of the
Commercial Internet Exchange Association
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As one of the newest members of the CIX, I've looked at what has been
built in Santa Clara with more than a little awe: a neutral zone where
each commercial connectivity provider peers with the other, with no
further assumption than "If I can get to the CIX, I can get to its
members." This is indeed an incredible achievement and might well represent
the only future for the Internet in this country.
Without a mechanism in place like the CIX routing agreement, we would see
a grotesquely different network -- one where huge portions come and go,
moment by moment, based on political and financial expediencies in which
the user has little or no say and where the small connectivity provider is
continually at the mercy of its sponsors.
So, while the CIX is positioned as the center of the Commercial Internet
in terms of routing and connectivity, I strongly believe that there are
other roles it must fulfill if it is indeed a trade association for the
Commercial Internet.
Simply put, the CIX or something very much like it needs to support the
creation of a broad-based infrastructure to drive the continued
development of the Commercial Global Internet.
To do so, it must: (There is no implied ranking or ordering to this list.)
- provide access to business services and resources in support of its
members.
In a developing marketplace, those who participate the earliest
(and strongest) are usually the smallest, the entrepreneurs. A new
market represents enormous risk and large, more firmly entrenched
companies tend to be quite risk averse. Smaller, less recalcitrant
companies are more willing to "bet the farm" on a new marketplace
but do not have easy access to those resources which larger firms
develop with ease. Examples include:
business and health insurance
strategic and tactical advice
access to marketing information
access to regulations and grants
administrative, legal, financial, management and
technical expertise.
- support the continued development of information navigation and retrieval
tools though a system of grants and other incentives.
Earlier this year, the University of Minnesota began to impose
licensing on the availability of Gopher. WAIS, Inc. has improved
and begun to market the original public domain Wide Area Information
Service suite of programs as a restricted commercial product. CERN has
released portions of the World Wide Web program suite to the public
domain, and NCSA has developed Mosaic around them.
I strongly believe that there are certain technologies which cannot
be held in proprietary hands without irrepairably damaging a nascent,
fledgling marketplace. Would Gopher be where it is today if Mead
has developed it? Or IP itself?
This is not to say that a better mousetrap, built by Mead or Dialog,
would be a bad thing. The market would decide. But without the
experimental "midnight engineering" projects against which to measure
them, how can we know how well they address the problem? We are
just beginning to be able to ask the "right" questions.
This leaves the question, "How do we pay for these Gophers and
WAISes and World Wide Webs?" It is not feasible for the user to pay.
And with the emergence of GNU copylefted implementations of the same
tools, it appears the the publisher need not pay either.
We should all pay by collecting from those who benefit the most (and
many benefit from the availability of content on the Internet, not
just the publisher. Who will want to use the plate if there is no
food on it? Who will pick up a fork if there is nothing to eat?) and
supporting the continued development these tools through a program of
projects and grants.
- act as a registry for services and products provided by its members.
Navigation without intellegence is impossible. We need to know
what is available and where to get it before we can decide we need
to have it. We need to know who people are and where their interests
lie. This information in the control of proprietary commercial
concerns presents a strong opportunity for misuse and represents
an obvious conflict of interest.
There are a number of efforts in development now to address these
questions, (the whois++ work, for example), and the CIX should support
them and act as a central point of contact for this information.
- provide identity authentication in support of commercial transactions.
For reasons I have stated elsewhere, I believe that true peer-based
commerce on the Internet (to the individual level) is a very long
way off. We already have an emerging model which is serving very
well indeed, where the user establishes a relationship with an entity
that represents the user's interests collectively (the User Proxy.)
Examples of the user proxy are groups like World, Well, Delphi, etc.
The publisher (Clarinet, Counterpoint, etc.) sells not to the
individual but to its proxy. This model is in place today and seems
to be working well. However, it does not scale well.
In a world where there are thousands of publishers and thousands
of proxies, we are presented with a difficult NxN problem of
authentication and authorization.
The CIX should act as the "middle man" in these relationships,
providing a guarentee of identity and trust. "If I trust you and
she trusts you, could she and I find reason to trust each other?"
- provide arbitration in disputes between its members.
I look forward to following the first Internet related lawsuit. It
should be very interesting indeed based on the distributed and
multinational natue of what we have built here. But there is also the
problem of education. The moment I walk into a court room and
state my case, I am thrust into the position of having to explain
how they stole from me, and how. IP? NNTP? Huh?
- act as a single source of accurate information to represent the
Commercial Internet to the public.
With the Morris Worm and the penchant the media has shown to only
address the purient and sensational aspects of the online community,
we need the CIX to act as the reputable source of accurate information
about the Global Internet.
There are many, many other functions the CIX could be providing for its
members and for the Internet as a whole including representation to
government and other bodies.
While I have been working on these ideas for some time and have described
them to many as the "Internet Business Organization (IBO)", I believe that
the CIX is positioned to become this IBO. Much of this already exists in
the form of other groups and efforts on the net, but CIX can become the
single point of contact.
But many others need to be able to participate in CIX before it can
realize these goals. I firmly believe that CIX must embrace not only the
connectivity providers, but many others as well including, (but not
limited to)
- the shell access providers
- the content providers
- the users
It is time for the CIX to decide whether it is it is a border agreement
between competing connectivity providers or a trade association for the
Commercial Internet.
If it is the former, it must always be a source of incredible tension and
mutual distrust. In this instance, I would suggest that the CIX is not a
trade association and to call itself one is not appropriate. That title
implies a depth of service and commitment which the CIX does not provide.
I applaud its efforts but call for the immediate creation of a true
Commercial Internet Trade Association.
If it is the later, it is time to address these issues. Recently, Ittai
Hershman of ANS addressed a number of these questions on com-priv and I
was very surprised to see Marty Schoffstall's direct reply completely ignore
them.
So, I respectfully request that the CIX Board address these issues in this
public forum. We need to know what roles the CIX will fulfill so we might
look elsewhere for the support we so desperately require to realize the
vision of a true Commercial Internet.
- Robert L. Raisch, chairman -- CENTnet, Inc.
president -- The Internet Company, Inc.
