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Owning the Medium, part two.
Large corporate interests are not taking a pass on the
Internet. Far from it, they are tightening their grip every step along the way.
According to Neil Munro, in Who will rule the Net,
published in February of 1999:
"Quietly, without any publicity
or controversy, the U.S. government took anunprecedented step last October. It invited 12
industry executives to join the 50-member delegation negotiating a pan-American free-trade
agreement. The invited companies and trade associations, including the Motion
Picture Association of America, America Online Inc., and the Software
Publishers Association, were brought aboard because they are creating the worldwide
electronic-commerce marketplace, and the U.S. government is happy to let them reshape
trade agreements to foster high-tech trade."
" 'Initially, there was some pushback [from other
countries], but I think that will quickly dissipate.... We are the ones building
this medium,' said Bill Burrington, vice president of global public policy for America
Online, the Internet access firm based in Dulles, Va." (emphasis
mine)
To believe the idea that the Internet will not (or cannot) be
controlled is naïve and flies in the face of current corporate and governmental
strategies. Where there is enough arrogance to falsely claim your companies’
responsibility for "building this medium," there is enough greed to claim
control of that medium. America Online would appear to be such a company. There are many
others claiming (or taking) control and responsibility, Microsoft being a prime example.
Munro sheds some sobering light on the current power play for
control of the Internet:
"well- funded U.S.
industry has organized itself around a common goal: keeping national governments out of
Internet regulation. In contrast, many of the other players with interests in the
outcome-such as consumer groups, privacy advocates, unions, nationalists, and social
conservatives-are scrounging for cash and arguing over problems and solutions."
For reasons discussed below, Munro finds that these smaller
players are almost exclusively left out of the discussion at the current time. That
discussion is about controlling the diversion of profits form the Internet to ensure they
end up where they naturally belong: with big business. As alluded to above, we are talking
big stakes. Munro writes:
"The pot of gold is electronic
commerce-the worldwide sale of goods and services via the Internet. In 1997, Internet
sales reached $9 billion; in 1998, they tripled to about $30 billion. By 2003, Internet
commerce will reach $3.2 trillion as companies sell movies, autos, books, software,
banking services, insurance services, and medical expertise online, according to Forrester
Research Inc., an economic forecasting company based in Cambridge, Mass.
Colossal fortunes are being made. The founder of
Internet bookseller amazon.com Inc. now has a paper fortune of roughly $4 billion, based
on fourth-quarter 1998 revenues of just $250 million. More broadly, a significant portion
of the U.S. citizenry has profited from the staggering growth in Wall Street stocks. And
high-tech firms are providing about seven million well-paying jobs, pushing millions of
people into the upper middle class. The White House estimates that the technology sector
upped the national growth rate by 40 percent between 1995 and 1997."
Munro points to the advantages held by American industry in
that they have a common agenda, an ability to influence foreign companies with strong ties
to foreign governments, and "the ability of industry to hold out the promise of jobs,
plus investment and stock-market fortunes, for governments that accept [their]
vision." American business is very conscious of how the situation needs to be
manipulated on an international scale for the highest returns. Munro quotes Richard M.
Hammer, international tax counsel at the U.S. Council for International Business, "If
we try to do it by ourselves, they'll all bring up the old Ugly American appellation
again."
It appears that nobody in big business with any current hold
on the media is sitting this one out. Munro reports:
"industry leaders have
organized numerous groups and trade associations. For example, a group called the Global
Business Dialogue, an alliance of prestigious industrv leaders, held its first formal
meeting in mid-January, in New York. Attendees included Gerald M. Levin, chief executive
officer of Time Warner Inc.; America Online's Case; Thomas Middelhoff, chairman of the
Bertelsmann A.G. publishing empire; and Louis V. Gerstner Jr., chairman of IBM Corp.; as
well as top executives from France Telecom, Fujitsu, and Toshiba Corp."
The groups work together, are run by top executives, and are
quite numerous. According to Munro, these include such prestigious sounding cabals as:
"The Washington-based Electronic Commerce Forum, the Internet Law & Policy Forum,
the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, the Global Internet Project, the World
Information Technology and Services Alliance, and the International Information Industry
Congress."
What about the democratizing effects of the web? Surely, as we
have seen, there are many groups struggling to have a voice. The problem, plain and
simple, according to Munro, is that they cannot afford plane tickets, hotel rooms, and
time off from other responsibilities to attend expensive, exclusive conferences held by
industry. Munro writes:
"Industry's clout was on
display at the most recent meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development on electronic commerce, held in Ottawa and attended by roughly 700 government
officials, 200 industry lobbyists, and 50 outside advocates. "The industry people
were 10 deep, and the consumer groups were nowhere to be found," said Marc Rotenberg,
director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit
advocacy group."
The result is:
"Thus far, industry's
international campaign has been extraordinarily successful, in no small measure because
U.S. companies have been aided by the White House. The U.S. government helped create the
World Intellectual Property Organization, persuaded 43 governments in 1996 to eliminate
tariffs on computers and software by 2002, and convinced numerous governments to
deregulate their telecommunications sector. Pressure from the U.S. government also helped
to prod the Japanese government and the European Commission, the executive arm of the
European Union, to declare that they will minimize national regulation of their portions
of the Internet economy."
Left unregulated (or "self-regulated"), corporations will
make it their primary goal to attempt to dominate the Internet with sites and messages
that spur the consumer society and consumption of their products, plain and simple.
Being a consumer, they will say, will be easier than ever, now that the web
will provide all entertainment as well as durable goods just a mouse-click away from your
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