Beyond Open Internet Slogans

In order to ensure a presence on the iPad, our newspapers and magazines have to relinquish 30% of their income, hand over subscriber data, avoid showing pictures of bare breasts and meet all manner of other American whims. ‘Urgent action is required’ was the Internet pioneers’ request. All we have to do is guarantee a free choice between Internet platforms was Minister Van Quickenborne’s response. However hopeful it may be, this discussion demonstrates how far removed we are from a full consensus.

Many of the arguments presented can be qualified as blowing hot and cold because you are no longer sure yourself.

Van Quickenborne gave the order to set up a study on competition regarding access to the iPad, but then stated in his Vrije Tribune (free forum) that there are sufficient alternatives for dissatisfied Apple users. In other words: anyone who is not satisfied with the iPad restrictions will just have to buy another tablet PC. He also states that all the legal content must be accessible and says in the same breath that it is not a major problem if Apple refuses to make it available. And the Internet pioneers are not always very convincing in their arguments either. For instance when they harp on about the liberating potential of the small Internet players, but at the same time attribute the domination of YouTube and Facebook to hype from the mainstream press. When it comes to the openness of the Internet, we are apparently lacking a new framework of reference, and a new regulatory framework to go with it too.

Such a framework could be based on two simple principles.
In the first place we need to realise that Internet platforms such as Apple and Facebook work according to their own, specific economic logic. Platforms create networks of service providers and consumers, and the value that I, as a user or provider, give a platform keeps growing as additional providers and consumers join. As a result, dominant platforms benefit from a snowball effect. In spite of the optimism of our Internet pioneers, it is impossible for a small platform to compete, unless it operates in a well-defined niche. Even though I, as a consumer, have freedom of choice in theory, there are real barriers making it difficult for consumers to switch from one platform to another. Simply switching, as Minister Van Quickenborne suggests, is often an illusion. To put it another way: What benefit would I get from searching on myfriends.com when all my friends are on Facebook?

Moreover, people also have to accept that the new platform economy goes beyond the old sector-specific analyses. If I want mobile applications today I can go to the platforms of IT giants (Apple), Internet players (Google), telephone manufacturers (Nokia) and telecom operators (France Telecom). Allowing the competition to play also means creating equal rules for all these platforms. So it does not really make sense to act tough with telecom operators, as Minister Van Quickenborne does, and get on their case about ‘network neutrality’; and at the same time think it is fine when Apple or Facebook discriminate. 

In other words, it is not the ‘network neutrality’ framework that Van Quickenborne refers to that is needed, but a framework for ‘platform neutrality’.

This framework has to include a number of requirements that can be issued for platforms irrespective of the market in which they operate. The recent Digital Agenda of the European Commission offers the necessary starting points for taking a closer look at the accessibility of platforms. We need to be wary of over-regulating, of course. The actual power wielded by the platforms over consumers and the range of services should be the most important criterion.
 
It seems obvious that this type of approach can only work if implemented at European level. It is revealing that Minister Van Quickenborne responded with a reference to the Chinese Internet censorship to the cri de coeur of the Internet pioneers calling for European privacy and consumer protection rules to be applied to the American platforms. This type of response makes a caricature of the justified demand to apply regional regulations on our own territory. In that respect, the recent iPad letter from the other competent Minister, Ingrid Lieten, to the European Commission is a worthwhile move, even if the letter she sent at the same time to Apple, that is probably still sitting in the in-tray of Steve Jobs’ successor, might make you giggle.
 
All in all, Internet pioneers should not throw the towel in.

In addition to the regulatory discussion, the iPad problem of our local press demonstrates yet again the need for cooperation between our players in the local media, the telecom industry and the Internet.

Anyone who gives up the fight this early against Apple and Facebook domination eliminates any possibilities for budding local niche platforms.
 
Pieter Ballon is a senior researcher at IBBT-SMIT and IBBT iLab.o, and a professor at the VUB. Eric Van Heesvelde is a senior researcher at IBBT-MICT, a professor at UGent and the VUB, and a former chairman of the BIPT.