12
Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain
Bangladesh Telecommunications Commission chairman, Zia Ahmed, justifi ed the
decision by saying, “ The government can take any decision to stop any activity that
threatens national unity and integrity. ”
13
Although many of these controls are initiated by states, other actors are implementing them either of their own accord or as a consequence of outsourcing. States themselves cannot implement the level of control that they seek over network activity
directly, so their control strategies have expanded to include pressure on private-sector
actors. Soon after China erected its Great Firewall, it became clear that this approach
would not be suffi cient as a means of exercising the extent and kinds of control that
the state wanted to carry out over time. It has turned to private companies to do most
of the blocking or the surveillance at the source, leading to a highly public, multiyear
showdown between the state ’ s regulators and the companies ’ executives.
While legal measures create the regulatory context for denial of access, for more
immediate needs, authorities can make informal “ requests ” of private companies.
Most often such requests come in the form of pressure on ISPs and online service
providers to remove offensive posts or information that supposedly threatens
“ national security ” or “ cultural sensitivities. ” Google ’ s 2010 decision to reconsider
its service offerings in China refl ects, in part, that company ’ s frustration with having
to deal with such informal removal requests from Chinese authorities on a regular
basis. Some governments have gone so far as to pressure the companies running
infrastructure to render services inoperative to prevent their exploitation by activists
and opposition groups, as was the case in Egypt in January 2011. In some of the
most egregious cases, such as the TOM-Skype case in China (discussed later in this
section), outsourced censorship and monitoring controls have taken the form either
of illegal acts or of actions contrary to publicly stated operating procedures and
privacy protections.
For governments in both the developed and developing worlds, delegating censorship and surveillance to private companies keeps these controls on the front lines of
the networks and among the actors who manage the key access points and hosting
platforms. If this trend continues, we can expect more censorship and surveillance
responsibilities to be carried out by private companies, cloud-computing services,
Internet exchanges, and telecommunications companies — often drawing upon wide
company discretion to implement a vague government mandate. Such a shift in the
locus of controls raises serious issues of public accountability and transparency for
citizens of all countries. In light of such regulations now creeping in the world over,
it is instructive to note that many private companies collect user data as a matter of
course and reserve the right in their end-user license agreement to share such information with any third party of their choosing. In the absence of government policies,
Internet service providers, operators of social networking sites, and Web-hosting companies may make decisions based on business interests or on their own terms-of-service
Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain
Bangladesh Telecommunications Commission chairman, Zia Ahmed, justifi ed the
decision by saying, “ The government can take any decision to stop any activity that
threatens national unity and integrity. ”
13
Although many of these controls are initiated by states, other actors are implementing them either of their own accord or as a consequence of outsourcing. States themselves cannot implement the level of control that they seek over network activity
directly, so their control strategies have expanded to include pressure on private-sector
actors. Soon after China erected its Great Firewall, it became clear that this approach
would not be suffi cient as a means of exercising the extent and kinds of control that
the state wanted to carry out over time. It has turned to private companies to do most
of the blocking or the surveillance at the source, leading to a highly public, multiyear
showdown between the state ’ s regulators and the companies ’ executives.
While legal measures create the regulatory context for denial of access, for more
immediate needs, authorities can make informal “ requests ” of private companies.
Most often such requests come in the form of pressure on ISPs and online service
providers to remove offensive posts or information that supposedly threatens
“ national security ” or “ cultural sensitivities. ” Google ’ s 2010 decision to reconsider
its service offerings in China refl ects, in part, that company ’ s frustration with having
to deal with such informal removal requests from Chinese authorities on a regular
basis. Some governments have gone so far as to pressure the companies running
infrastructure to render services inoperative to prevent their exploitation by activists
and opposition groups, as was the case in Egypt in January 2011. In some of the
most egregious cases, such as the TOM-Skype case in China (discussed later in this
section), outsourced censorship and monitoring controls have taken the form either
of illegal acts or of actions contrary to publicly stated operating procedures and
privacy protections.
For governments in both the developed and developing worlds, delegating censorship and surveillance to private companies keeps these controls on the front lines of
the networks and among the actors who manage the key access points and hosting
platforms. If this trend continues, we can expect more censorship and surveillance
responsibilities to be carried out by private companies, cloud-computing services,
Internet exchanges, and telecommunications companies — often drawing upon wide
company discretion to implement a vague government mandate. Such a shift in the
locus of controls raises serious issues of public accountability and transparency for
citizens of all countries. In light of such regulations now creeping in the world over,
it is instructive to note that many private companies collect user data as a matter of
course and reserve the right in their end-user license agreement to share such information with any third party of their choosing. In the absence of government policies,
Internet service providers, operators of social networking sites, and Web-hosting companies may make decisions based on business interests or on their own terms-of-service