An open informal meeting held by the steering committee of the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) at the IGF this week in Rio de Janeiro sparked a lively discussion on the impact of propietary standards on citizens around the world.
Members of the Steering Committee of the IGF’s Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) opened the meeting with a short orientation on the role and importance of standards, including a discussion of the way in which standards inform our daily lives, for example by restricting the scope of our online searches due to proprietary search engine databases.
There is an urgent concern that proprietary systems are expanding which restrict legal access and stunt interoperability. This situation will become more problematic as digital systems continue to become more ubiquitous in the coming 5 years, with public interest implications related to innovation, competition, and digital inclusion beginning to come to the fore.
Following the orientation, an open forum occurred where many important issues and questions were raised. Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of APC, emphasized the particular importance of the mobile telephony sphere, due to the prevalence of mobile phones in developing countries. The mobile telecommunications sector is also an area where competition policy is especially relevant, given the many telcomms monopolies in regions such as Africa.
Another issue raised was the need to collaborate with the environmental movement in creating standards that impact on e-waste strategies and energy use in ICTs. The session concluded with a call for suggestions to form part of the work programme of the DCOS. Al Alegre from the Foundation for Media Alternatives contributed numerous ideas regarding capacity building and the translation of core documents for campaigning and awareness raising within different constituencies globally.