Law Commons^™

Of Governments And Governance, A. Michael Froomkin

Articles

The Magaziner Report focuses on achieving short-term goals without giving sufficient consideration to long-term consequences affecting the structure of Internet governance and democracy in general. This overly pragmatic approach creates a paradoxical climate: overly-friendly to government intervention (in e-commerce regulation) while also overly willing to defer to privatized governance structures (in other areas). As the recent World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") domain name/trademark process demonstrates, certain Internet governance processes raise several questions, not least discerning whether such processes include adequate notice and consultation. More traditional democratic processes, such as legislation and regulation, have routinized means of giving affected parties notice …