Responsibility of and trust in ISPs

On Monday, I wrote about Tim Wu’s OpEd from the Wall Street Journal that concluded with a paragraph:

The Internet is still relatively young, and we remain in the golden age of these monopolists. We can also take comfort from the fact that most of the Internet’s giants profess an awareness of their awesome powers and some sense of attendant duty to the public. Perhaps if we’re vigilant, we can prolong the benign phase of their rule. But let’s not pretend that we live in anything but an age of monopolies.

Do the giants demonstrably act from an “attendant duty to the public”?

A paper entitled Responsibility of and Trust in ISPs was published in “Knowledge Technology & Policy” by Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Chair in Politics at University of Hull (UK).

This discussion is about the neglected concepts of trust and social responsibility on the Internet. I will discuss and explain the concepts and their implications to people and society. I then address the issue of moral and social responsibilities of ISPs and web-hosting companies. I argue that ISPs and web-hosting companies should aspire to take responsibility for content and that they should respect and abide by their own terms of conduct.

Let’s tie Dr. Cohen-Almagor’s paper to the conclusion put forward in the Wall Street Journal piece. To me, ISPs and web-hosting companies aspiring to take responsibility for content would be a demonstration by ISPs and internet giants acting from an attendant duty to the public.

The journal already has two responses to Dr. Cohen-Almagor’s paper. It is a provocative piece that should stimulate a public discussion of these issues.