A news-heavy week in standards

The US Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke at the Atlantic Council earlier this week. I was a keen audience member because Tai has recently walked back lines drawn by the US in the WTO's e-commerce negotiations, which I've written about previously. A core quote from her interview,

"In short, we need to hit pause on digital trade policy. Pull back provisions that we know are not fit for the times. Engage, learn, and talk to each other, including in forums like this, and ask: how should we be approaching this? It's a domestic policy issue first. Before we bring it to the international realm, we need to figure out what works for the United States and our democracy at this moment, especially with the elections and the amount of disinformation and interference happening through information systems created by data and distribution platforms."

Clearly trade is consequential for the internet. Others have pointed out that the US positions on free and open principles should remain, otherwise it sends a poor message about how the internet ideally works. But the USTR didn't support important e-commerce provisions for FOSS because the US tech sector was against it. Civil society groups that care about equity and access should support these steps, which are backing away from Big Tech, not the internet.

The sentiment, at least, is plainly there. From her FT opinion piece, "We are also putting people at the centre of our review of digital trade rules." Read more (gift link):

Trade must transform its role in the social contract

From data to workers’ rights, we need to democratise economic opportunity

Financial TimesKatherine Tai

Join the IXP community! (If you haven't already, dear reader.)

Tremendous news

• The Chair's summary from last week's WSIS+20 High Level Event highlights human rights considerations in internet standards, including AI standards and other emerging technologies https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2024/Files/outcomes/draft/WSIS20ForumHighLevelEvent2024-ChairsSummary.pdf
• It was announced last week that the ITU and Linux Foundation are co-creating a new standards body: The OpenWallet Forum https://www.itu.int/hub/2024/05/itu-and-linux-foundation-join-forces-to-create-openwallet-forum
• The ITU Council is meeting this week and discussing, among other things, rebuilding digital infrastructure in Palestine: https://www.itu.int/md/S24-CL-C-0103/en
• Tech workers at Cisco write about their mission to a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon https://x.com/techworkersco/status/1797666038907306015?s=46
• At RIPE, Dr Joanna Kulesza presented their research project on "Satellite Internet: Trust and Data Governance,” covering critical policy issues including challenges related to data sovereignty and jurisdiction in the context of integrating Low Earth Orbit satellite constellations into the telecommunications network as well as the evolving multistakeholder model behind Internet's physical layer. https://www.ripe.net/community/wg/active-wg/coop/interim-sessions/the-future-of-europes-digital-infrastructure-and-regulation/
• The Red Cross' initiative to create digital emblems has come to the IETF https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/JDD45_zRLB6Wt10ZVf4CQb3RoOM/
• DataFest Africa is happening next month in Nairobi, 17-19 July– register for in-person and online participation https://datafest.africa
• TPRC52 (The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy) announces its accepted papers for the September event: https://www.tprcweb.com/introduction-impact
• Submit papers for the December 2024 conference in Cape Town, organized by Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), that brings together academics, researchers, policymakers, sector regulators, and development experts from South Africa, other African countries, and the rest of the world to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by infrastructure development in telecommunications, electricity, transportation, water, and other sectors. https://econrsa.org/events/call-for-papers-infrastructure-for-economic-growth/
• The Research and Analysis of Standard-Setting Processes Proposed Research Group (RASPRG) was born of an IAB workshop "Show Me the Numbers" meant to analyze the diverse data on the history, development, and current activities in the development and standardization of Internet protocols and its institutions. The work of RASPRG gets a shout from an IAB retrospective on the past 10 years of its workshop series https://www.ietf.org/blog/iab-workshop-review/
• ICANN 80 is happening next week in Kigali and the schedule is up https://icann80.sched.com/
• And word has it that PIR is going "thin," which is great news for the privacy of .org domain registrants https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mneylon_public-interest-registry-pir-who-run-the-activity-7204139659260522496-_kUn

Please forward to a colleague. Share online!