noncompliance with the Principles. Problems may arise when, for example, poor
service, terms-of-service violations (often interpreted as censorship), or the desire for
an avenue of appeal is perceived as noncompliance.
According to the Governance Framework, the GNI complaints process should not be
triggered until company channels are exhausted, and is for extraordinary circumstances. Complainants may also choose to seek redress through noncompany participants, which may or may not have systems in place to address such inquiries,
potentially overloading them or yielding referrals to GNI without sufficient investigation. Given what are likely to be modest resources on the part of GNI, a robust system
will be imperative to maintain public trust and access to the system. The pilot program
will develop a mechanism that is credible, practical, and effective, while anticipating
the challenges posed by the potential scale of complaints and the diversity of end users
and issues.
Learning and Understanding
Limited knowledge of current practice among ICT companies and empirical understanding of the problems they face related to online free expression and privacy, in
conjunction with the ceaseless changes in business, user behavior, and government
responses, mean that learning is perhaps the greatest contribution that GNI can make
for participants and other stakeholders. The GNI should leverage the tremendous collective resources and expertise of its participants, but will face the task of finding realistic ways to access and combine them—a task made difficult by legal concerns, secrecy,
intellectual property, and other competing agendas. From the development of human
rights impact assessments (a process long under way in the GNI) to the generation of
useful data to identify emerging issues and trends, to the creation of relevant metrics to
help track the state of expression and privacy online worldwide, the Initiative has the
capacity to create novel outputs that can inform company and user behavior, as well as
government intervention. While more attention has been paid to other areas of GNI,
this zone holds the greatest potential to attract new participants and to change behavior in the long term.
Scope and Specificity
While the GNI has been cautiously welcomed, the participants in the process and
others outside it have expressed a range of concerns. In many cases, it is simply too
early to tell whether these apprehensions will be borne out by experience, but they
serve as valuable markers for GNI guidance and evaluation. While all are of consequence, some relate to the core functioning of the initiative, while others relate to
significant, but not necessarily essential, details. The EFF, for instance, has noted that
the Principles lack a commitment by companies to develop technologies that support
Protecting Privacy and Expression Online
101
service, terms-of-service violations (often interpreted as censorship), or the desire for
an avenue of appeal is perceived as noncompliance.
According to the Governance Framework, the GNI complaints process should not be
triggered until company channels are exhausted, and is for extraordinary circumstances. Complainants may also choose to seek redress through noncompany participants, which may or may not have systems in place to address such inquiries,
potentially overloading them or yielding referrals to GNI without sufficient investigation. Given what are likely to be modest resources on the part of GNI, a robust system
will be imperative to maintain public trust and access to the system. The pilot program
will develop a mechanism that is credible, practical, and effective, while anticipating
the challenges posed by the potential scale of complaints and the diversity of end users
and issues.
Learning and Understanding
Limited knowledge of current practice among ICT companies and empirical understanding of the problems they face related to online free expression and privacy, in
conjunction with the ceaseless changes in business, user behavior, and government
responses, mean that learning is perhaps the greatest contribution that GNI can make
for participants and other stakeholders. The GNI should leverage the tremendous collective resources and expertise of its participants, but will face the task of finding realistic ways to access and combine them—a task made difficult by legal concerns, secrecy,
intellectual property, and other competing agendas. From the development of human
rights impact assessments (a process long under way in the GNI) to the generation of
useful data to identify emerging issues and trends, to the creation of relevant metrics to
help track the state of expression and privacy online worldwide, the Initiative has the
capacity to create novel outputs that can inform company and user behavior, as well as
government intervention. While more attention has been paid to other areas of GNI,
this zone holds the greatest potential to attract new participants and to change behavior in the long term.
Scope and Specificity
While the GNI has been cautiously welcomed, the participants in the process and
others outside it have expressed a range of concerns. In many cases, it is simply too
early to tell whether these apprehensions will be borne out by experience, but they
serve as valuable markers for GNI guidance and evaluation. While all are of consequence, some relate to the core functioning of the initiative, while others relate to
significant, but not necessarily essential, details. The EFF, for instance, has noted that
the Principles lack a commitment by companies to develop technologies that support
Protecting Privacy and Expression Online
101