The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Good morning. My name is Hernan Galperin from the University of Southern California.
We will start the session called "Having your cake and eating it, too. Can Internet rights and access goals be reconciled?" This session is organized by the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression at the University of Palermo, with my colleague, who will introduce himself in a minute.
We have ten panelists this morning. And so I've given each of the panelists a very short time. Less than five minutes. And in order to spark the conversation, I've asked them to respond to the following statement.
Getting the next billion online must be a policy priority. But will it necessarily require compromises with regard to the basic technical and regulatory principles of the Internet as we know it today?
So the panelists have been asked to respond to the statement in less than five minutes. And one slide. And I think most have zero slides, which is great. Because we will make it a more conversation.
So this will start with the brief statement by the ten panelists, and then we will open the conversation among the panelists to the audience here as well as to the remote audience.
So without further ado, I'll turn to my colleague and co-organizer, Eduardo Bertoni.
>> EDUARDO BERTONI: Thank you, Hernan. As a co-organizer, I would suggest that people who are in the back can sit in the desk, so we can have a conversation more close.
I'm Eduardo Bertoni. The Director of the Center for Studies of Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, CELE, which is a center working on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information particularly through our initiative for Freedom of Expression on the Internet. We have been working on regulatory issues of the Internet, human rights and so on.
So I just want to start with this trying to answer this provocative statement or question that was just made. I would like to complete that statement with another question, which is something that, in my view, is not yet resolved. The question is: Is Internet access a human right? And why am I asking this question to answer Hernan's question? Because it depends on how we consider access to Internet. If one possibility is to consider today that access to the Internet is a human rights, per se, the other possibility is to consider that access to the Internet is not a human right, per se, but is an enabler to the enjoyment of other human rights.
So when we talk about compromising something, or compromise the Internet rights, or compromising the Internet as it is now, I would like to put to you this other question. Because for me, I have been teaching human rights and the Internet for years now, it's hard to think that we can compromise human rights even to increase access to the Internet for millions of people.
If we have a human right, though some human rights are not absolute, it's very difficult to consider that you can lower the bar for a human right just to comply to fulfill with another goal, in this case it's increase the number of people that have access to the Internet.
So when we think about access to the Internet, and we will think in this question if it is a human right or not, we should think in the consequences. If the consequence is -- if access to the Internet is a human right, the consequence, it's for me, very clear, that to increase access we cannot change anything that can damage any human rights. So you cannot damage Internet access.
So that's my point of view. Maybe it's not a complete answer to the statement. But it's something that concerns me on how we are going to consider access to the Internet today, because as we know some people say that today access to the Internet is not a human right, per se.
Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Eduardo.
I'll turn now to Alison, from RIA Africa. And I am not going to introduce the speakers more than just say their affiliation, because they are incredibly accomplished and it would take too much to introduce them, even a short bio would take time. So I'll let the speakers introduce themselves, if they wish so. Alison.
>> ALISON GILLWALD: Thank you very much. I'm from ICT Africa, which is a ICT policy and regulatory research network, which is hosted by a think tank in Cape Town, South Africa. And I'm going to leave any other introductions or questions about that to later so that I can use my time.
And I wanted to contextualize the question in the sort of more fully ICT ecosystem sort of framework, because I think the idea of, you know, simply connecting the last four billion or focusing simple on the access issues really fails to understand the complex and integrated system that you have to have right in order for people not only to access the systems, but to use them in ways that are equitable amongst different people in society.
So I think in terms of this ICT ecosystem, the way we view it is certainly to put your user, consumer, citizens at the center of this ecosystem in order for effective citizenship. You not only need access, though, you also need opportunities to use the Internet optimally, and that really goes to the questions of human rights.
Because I think getting access to a, you know, high cost small bandwidth service or application is hardly going to enable you to exercise ones rights. But of course beyond that there are limitations.
And so to go to Hernan's question, I think it's absolutely essential that we find policy and regulatory frameworks and measures that enable access and that it doesn't happen at the expense of human rights.
I think it's important to -- to place the issue of why we want to connect the last billion. You know, is it simply because everybody should be connected or is it because there's some kind of broader developmental objective or gain from this? And so I think we need to understand it in that light.
And in that sense, we are not just looking at connectivity, but looking at increased network in society, innovation, advisement, things that have to happen in order for this to happen. And I think you see at a point that where you've got sort of technical regulation, sort of quite instrumental competition regulation that has got us to a point where we have become more liberalized, you get to a point when sufficient people have access, when you have a mass of people that have access to the Internet to open the Internet and the ideas and freedoms that you get a clash of human rights where it's not permitted. So I think we have to really address this issue.
But I think the problem is that the assumptions around the ICT ecosystem and the "best practices," and I use that in quotation, "best practices," that are associated with them, are based on assumptions of effectively regulated competitive mature markets and economies, human rights frameworks, liberal Democratic human rights frameworks that exist in the north that simply don't exist in the south.
And so we have to look at the way mobile, mobile broadband Internet, has emerged in the 1900s, through very, very different innovative measures, out of constraint, and see how we can enhance that.
So the access conversation has tended to focus on the sort of supply side measure, getting the infrastructure out into the rural areas. You know, getting people sufficiently connected in order to participate in society and the economy. But I think, you know, we have to really begin to look at the demand side issues. That's really where the issues of inequality are addressed. So the demand side drivers, the demand side stimulation in order to get access, of course, primarily is affordability. Getting the prices sufficiently affordable for people to use the Internet, not only access but use it in what meaningful way.
Now, this is a serious challenge in Developing Countries, where the real cost of delivery of Internet is arguably above the cost that many people can afford. This is a serious challenge. It cannot be free, it cannot be given away, and therefore in a sense it cannot be a human right in that sense. Obviously it enables other human rights, and if one has a legal framework that is open, et cetera, you can ensure that.
But we have to create policy and regulatory systems that are as complex and adaptive as the complex adaptive systems that we are trying to regulate. So I think looking at ICT access and use within an old sort of instrumental competitive paradigm that, you know, tries to regulate certain things that appear to be vertically integrated or appear to be anticompetitive, that are actually new innovative ways, public/private endeavors, private private endeavors, platforms with Telco operators, zero-rated services, for example, that are being brought -- bringing services to people in innovative ways that are leveraging marketshare, growth in marketshare and positioning in the market, et cetera, should be looked at very carefully and not simply, you know, dispelled or regulated out of the market because they don't conform to the classical notion of fair competition or of equal access or equal rights.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Alison.
The next speaker will be Carolina Botero.
>> CAROLINA BOTERO: Good morning. Good morning to all. I'm from Columbia. My position will be closer to what ICT Africa just explained.
I would like to ask whether we can change the argument from the access to think on what is the Internet? Because yes or no, most of the people -- the idea of access to the Internet is less controversial right now than it was probably a few years ago, and it puts over the table a dilemma that is hard to answer. If we really think on what is the next billion going to be, the access is going to be basically in the south. And to only think about access will leave a lot of questions unresolved. Our main question now is how are we going to put all of that billion people into the Internet? And then the question will be what is the Internet going to be? I think then we will have a much broader discussion on that.
And why is that? Because, first of all, most of the Governments, even if they are poor or not, they already have an inclusion plan, how to get that billion in. We might like it or not, but it's even very hard for Civil Society to discuss the plans of the Government, because basically what you said, there is -- there are issues of prices and infrastructure.
From our point of view, it might be -- or it's much possible to make the discussion from a Civil Society point of view on what the Internet is going to look like. Why? Because then we see four different partners that are very clear and distinguished. There is the Government, the Civil Society, there is industry, and there is probably this technical community. And I think "Probably" because I'm talking from the south. And the technical community usually is either engaged with Government or industries. There is a very difficult relation of an independent technical community that will engage in this discussion.
But we should foster that. If we see these four different partners or stakeholders better, what we see is very different points of view from there.
The state has the issue of resources, of budgets, that will limit what they want to do. They will have the discussion on whether just to point a couple more, different from what you just said, they will probably want to foster access one by one from home, because then the price will be paid by the user. And they have have few programs on public WiFi, for instance. And that is an issue by itself. But the discussion that we can have there is, I think, a very small discussion.
The industry, we have all the issues or rating that is going to be also the tension on who is going to do that.
Whereas Civil Society, in the south at least, is very few people that is already connected on the Internet and know the full extent of the Internet. So the discussion is from a very small point, from a very small group of people, to a broader people. If we start providing an Internet that is only a fraction of what we know, does the Internet -- will the Internet evolve? And I think then the discussion needs to start moving, not leaving it, but moving from just access to talk about the Internet we're going to provide. And in that frame the human rights perspective is not the dilemma it is as in access. It is an issue on what is going to be the Internet of the future.
And if we have these ideas I'm telling you, then what we have to recall is that there are at least three characteristics that we have seen on the Internet. The centralization, neutrality,and open standards that had shaped the Internet so far. Not that I'm trying to be from a naive point of view, because certainly just the fact of the cables that connect the Internet from one ocean to the other will be a centralized infrastructure. But it's just the idea that we're looking for.
So I would just drop-off saying that I will call for the discussion to not just be about access, but what Internet is about.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Carolina.
And then for another perspective from the south, we return to Helani Galpaya.
>> HELANI GALPAYA: Hi. I'm Helani Galpaya from LIRNEasia, a think tank working in Asia and Southeast Asia.
Eduardo started out posting the question about is access to the Internet a basic human right? And I worry about statements like this. Because we have accepted and declared basic human rights, like the Freedom of Expression, gathering, and so on and so forth, that are quite universally accepted. And the countries I work in have trouble even assuring those basic rights. And now we add one other thing to the pile which we cannot define what the Internet is? I worry.
However, I am strongly of the opinion that the Internet is an enabler, a very strong enabler of the accepted human rights. It is also a tool that can be used to stop people from having those rights. Because it makes it easy for third parties to survey and invade the privacy. So it really is what we make of it. It can be an enabler or it can be used negatively.
What we need is a populace that is online, that is aware of the potential of the Internet, both positive and negative. But the starting point is we need a populace that is online. And they are not online in Asia. Under 20 percent of the population is using the Internet. And what we see, as Alison pointed out, are some innovations where they are zero-rating that are possibly short-term passing marketing arrangements that are coming up. And the whole debate has shifted to critiquing these things instead actually of worrying about how we get the rest of our people online, into the real Internet.
And the big difference between a free zero-rated package, which is the next affordable package, which is within the control of regulators, policymakers and the companies, primarily regulators and policymakers, who seem to have taken their foot off the pedal. And the danger is that we think everybody is using free basic Internet, and now we're done. We're not done. We need full access to the Internet and we need to have a real debate about how we do that and how we educate our people to be full participants of the full Internet. And that's not happening. And the conversation has diverged, and that's a danger.
And I'll stop there.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Helani.
Once we finish the first round I'll give time for the other panelists to respond, because I think there is a real interesting conversation emerging that Helani brought up about access and rights and also that Eduardo touched upon.
But I want to turn to a perspective from Jose.
>> JOSE' CLASTORNIK: Thank you. I think a couple of questions that have a different approach to the answers, just for the last question, access to knowledge resources, is Internet access a human right? We initially tried to avoid the technical enablers, not to name them, and to concentrate on the essence of what we are trying to -- what is important.
So in my case, I would say that the access to knowledge is the matter. And Internet is an enabler. I don't know what that allows it.
So I think that the main point is how -- how we enable the access to knowledge, and how the enablers of the Internet give full access to the population, give equal -- equity in the access to the population.
I think being the only one Government here at this table, it's an invitation because our indexes are very well -- in a way we are leading in the region on ICT access, development, equity, quality of telecommunications. And perhaps what I can say is why? And I think that the reason is because we have a Public Policy that uses all the means that we have in the country to make it happen.
So when we say okay, it's not only the problem of access. After the problem of access is how you give laptops to children and how they can have the contents in the cloud. And every step you go on, you are challenging yourself and your goals on how you get all the people at the same time having access to all this knowledge and all these means.
And we did it by using a multistakeholder mechanism of working, a public agenda that has been renewed three times, where all the stakeholders are working in their own matters. We have public Telcos and public institutions where the private Sector doesn't work. They are making it happen. So we have, I don't know, 50 percent of the homes with fiber in the homes, or we have practically all the telephones have Internet access free for the people. All the students have a laptop and they can get free Internet just walking 200 meters. That's the kind of things that we are doing with the public agenda.
But with financial enablers and multistakeholder enablers that make them happen, but it must be a compromise of everyone. It's not just something that I just say from the Government. You must get everyone in your way. And with the help of everyone, things can happen. You can take some shortcuts, but you must know that they are shortcuts. That sometime in the future you must put them in the real tray.
So that's more or less what I wanted to say. Thank you very much.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Jose.
Now we turn from a Government perspective to an industry perspective. And we continue with Juan Jung.
>> JUAN JUNG: Thank you, Hernan.
I think we can make important advances in connecting the next billion without compromising the spirit of the key principles of the Internet. When I think of "key principles," I'm thinking to keep the Internet as a space open to innovation, to avoid any arbitrary discrimination, to avoid the blocking of legal contents, to avoid the degradation of quality for obligatory reasons,and to promote transparency. But we have a worldwide challenge that means closing the digital divide. More than half of the people worldwide still do not use the Internet. So we need to focus the Public Policies on the unconnected people. That is a key that I wanted to state.
And why the unconnected people do not connect? Mainly two reasons. First, lack of affordability. There is an income barrier especially in the emerging regions. And also lack of interest, in some cases. We think that commercial flexibility, it's very important to be able to connect these people. And we can use commercial flexibility in a correct way that do not harmthe key principles.
Commercial flexibility can help us to have offers put at the income levels of the base, and that's very important. And we must remember the role that prepaid plans had to emersify mobile voice connections in emerging regions. We cannot forget that.
Also, commercial flexibility or accelerated programs, for instance, can help to create demand. They can be an initial path that allows users to come online later in the future and be fully connected. We can remember the example of the Committee working on accelerating that helps to promote demand.
Of course, this should not be a permanent situation. We don't want this to be the rule. But we must think of this as an entry level that helps us to reach that billion people.
And of course we must be aware of the risks that may harm the key principles that I said before. We must avoid having the garden walls or anything that restricts innovation and competition. So we must do it in a correct way to keep the key principles.
In this sense, it is essential to prevent distortions of competition through the relationships produced within the whole digital ecosystem.
For instance, special connectivity programs offered through sponsorships that allowed users to access to certain services. This should be open to anyone who is interested to participate in this sponsored program. Anyone that may want to be part of this may have the opportunity, should be open on equal terms to all interests. That is an important thing that we must keep.
Any special treatment for rated companies that are in the content or application market should be avoided. The agreements that are there should be open to everybody, because the key thing here is that no actor who could eventually have significant market power in any of the segments of the digital system should have the potential to distort competition.
if we do this in a correct way, zero-rating can help us to reach the next billion of people that we have to connect. And this, I think, does not contradict the key spirit of the Internet principles in the sense that there are no arbitrary privileges to any provider. The users' freedom of choice is preserved. The users should have transparent information and we are not distorting competition. This is very important. And following that way I think we can have development of the whole digital ecosystem.
Thanks.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Juan.
Now I'd like to go to Mishi Choudhary from the Software Center in India.
>> MISHI CHOUDHARY: Thank you. I'm a lawyer. I also run a nonprofit legal services organisation in New Delhi in India.
Thank you for seeing -- every time I think of this, and this is a topic which has occupied my mind and our work for a long time, I feel it's like water, water everywhere, but it's access, access everywhere. But it comes with multiple links. Most of the proposals that we are hearing these days and about increasing access is to some Internet that the privileged people don't use. Some access that turns us into consumers, not producers. Some access that assumes that you have a cell phone. You use some service but just don't spend enough data on the social networking data miners to be on the other side of the digital divide.
Any effort in the name of providing some access, as that's all you can afford, should be examined carefully. So-called free service may be being paid for the privacy of the poor or the cost of killing competition in the market.
We are constantly listening to people talk about how to bring the Internet to the most poor, and the assumption that surveillance is the business model of the Internet, as if privacy is a concept that's only within the European Council of Justice or to those who wave an American passport. It isn't. How come we talk about protecting privacy, free speech, expression, but when it comes to access the concepts vaporize in thin air as if it's better than being unemployed.
Presenting a walled garden to the world on the false ground that this is all they can afford is a fundamental conflict with any rational policy of social development through innovation. Is this access provider trying to buy the deanonymized packets of the poor by sending them through their proxy server? Is this talking about a better infrastructure, or more where there isn't anyother? Is it just about surveiling the back hall? We examine some of the most holy things in the halls of access, and we must do it now because what happens is they become so entrenched because they are not ready to undo it because some benefits will be talked about later on.
Doing such a thing, what we have seen is that they seem to be cheating the beneficiaries. They are offering the Internet, the ones which are doing so, it's used to route all of their traffic through the free websites where the users' identities are logged so the traffic can be paid for by the spy rather than by them. So the first actual charge is that the poor will be comprehensively surveilled, while the rich using the Internet do not put all of their traffic through one service. This is something that the citizens should resent and the authorities should prohibit.
It's not a basket of media websites we consume any more than a highway as a collection of stores along the side of the road we can just shop at. The Internet is the possibility ofunlimited interconnections. A social condition in which we can all be connected to everyone else everywhere. All the Internet, all the time, for all the people, with rich technical connections that can allow us to produce services for one another. Which means actually no brain left behind.
The integrity of this network that it provides one, one indivisible opportunity for everyone connected to it, is its most important feature.
As a tool of social development, the Internet allows people with little capital equipment, but plenty of ingenuity, to build effective businesses from zero. We need to get to the next one, two or as many billion as there are online, but give them real Internet access like you all get in the privileged world, and not the other one which is because you are too poor to afford you cannot have and we can only give you a shoddy version of that. No compromises. If we provide for one like that, it's a slippery slope. It's all over.
Data miners agreeing to absorb the world's traffic in order to mine the data of the people around the world continues to destroy all security of the Internet for those poor enough to need subsidized Internet service. The poor deserve the same sanitation, health care, drinking water, primary and secondary education, and network communications of the rich. It is the responsibility of the society to provide them. If you want to give us access, don't give us these tricks. Give us real access. Don't give us condescending statements like: You're too poor, just deal with it. Give us real access.
Thank you.
(Applause)
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
I'd like to turn to the technical community, Sebastian Bellagamba, from ISOC.
>> SEBASTIAN BELLAGAMBA: I would like to first address a couple of questions that were opened here. First, it's about the Internet of human rights. I would like to agree completely thattechnology cannot be a human right. Technology is just technology. And technology can be an enabler of basic human rights but not a human right in itself. So I would adhere to that avenue.
Having this statement in front of me, I can only think of two things. I mean, does the Internet have rights, per se? And when is it that the Internet -- the rights and the access fought each other, separate each other, split, in order to be reconciled now?
I don't think we are at that point yet. We have to prevent getting there. And that's our main task. We are still in this path where we can work for an open Internet and keep connecting people.
From a more technical standpoint, we have been at the Internet Society working for connecting people around the world for 23 years now. In the Internet time, we are kind of a prehistoricorganization. But I think what we have done in the field of getting people online has been the easiest part. I mean, the easier part of our job has been done. Connecting these 3 pointsomething billion people has been a piece of cake compared to what is ahead.
It's not about connecting even the next billion. I think the most important task, I mean, the last two billion are the most important task ahead. So that should be our focus.
But it's not just connecting people to the Internet. Because you have to answer the question why? Why are you connecting people? It's not just connecting people just for the sake of getting them online. It's because we -- at least we believe in the capabilities of the Internet to transform people's lives, to serve as an economic, social, and human development tool, to be also a tool for strengthening human rights. So you have to be -- I mean, I think that's the interesting part of this statement. So because you have to think on what is the goal you're pursuing? You're not pursuing connecting people just for the sake of getting them online. You're connecting people to make them -- to make their lives better. So that has to be the basis for the discussion.
And not to any Internet. It's not just anything that can be called the Internet. We believe in an open and free Internet. I mean, that's the Internet we would like to preserve, and that's the Internet that we would like to connect people to.
I think there are four pillars that have to be worked on for that direction. For the next billion, I think a combination of, I would say, market force, public policy, and the work of several organizations can do the trick. But for the last two billion, that's the important part. We have to keep working on basically four pillars. One is infrastructure development. We have to make the Internet more affordable, more efficient.
We have to develop communities that can carry that ahead. We need human capacities in order to take profit of the connection. And we have to keep working with our policymakers in order to make them do good Public Policies.
So if we stick, in my mind, if we stick to these four pillars we can accomplish our task of getting everyone online to the free and open Internet that we love.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: We have two more speakers. First I'll turn to industry again with Martin Waserman from Facebook.
>> MARTIN WASERMAN: Thank you, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and thanks for the invitation.
I wanted to start by saying that I don't think anyone -- at least we don't believe that human rights are an intention. We believe that the Internet enables individuals and communities. 1.5 billion people around the world are using Facebook to share their thoughts and interests, to connect with friends, families, and brother communities. They are organizing even politically and they are getting informed.
So one of the lessons we learned is that when people connect, new and unexpected things happen. There is a positive feedback effect between cooperation among individuals and the development of at least some human rights.
But more generally, I would say that connecting the southern half of the world, and particularly the half in the global South, it's a challenge. Working with the base of the pyramid is not the same as developing for the peak of that pyramid. There are social structural issues which we call the digital divide that reflect on the Internet options.
I'll give you just one example. In Argentina, the people who do not finish high school are three times less likely to connect to the Internet than those who finish their studies. Applications on platforms are tailor made at the beginning where smartphones are popular and very actual.
On the other side is that almost everybody, I would say -- I think it's 90 percent of the world population is within reach of a network, but not almost everybody is accessing the Internet through those networks.
So the question I think we have to ask ourselves as a group is why? We have seen an -- we talk about a pricing gap. There is maybe also a knowledge gap. And I would also like to add that there may be a content gap. It's not the same to access the Internet when you're a native English speaker or someone who knows written English than someone whose language is not used proudly over the Internet. So we have to take that into account.
And we need more research. And I think it's interesting to read the latest ISOC literature. Some of the statements I'm saying come from those resources.
We should have a clear picture and we should accelerate the rate of Internet adoption. We have seen public development plans for broadband and private development plans to expand the existing networks. Sometimes what we haven't seen is the clear evidence on what is working and what doesn't. And that's a question that needs to be answered. Why everybody that is under the reach of an existing network is not yet connected to the Internet?
Really, the common answer to these questions and the policy that derives from these questions should be a first important step to speed up this adoption process. If this fails or is too slow, this leaves people out of the enormous possibility that the development has given to the first billion.
I'll stop there, because we don't have time, but we will continue later.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
The last speaker is Anriette Esterhuysen, from APC.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Hernan. I'll start with a quick anecdote. And about six years ago, in fact some of the people in the room were there, at an APC meeting somewhere in southeast Asia, we had a specter gram exercise. We asked people, and it was a mixed group from all over the world: What is more important to you? Free unrestricted Internet access, where you can express yourself freely, or no Internet access? And it was very interesting, because the Asians all went to their priority was free access. And the Africans went to -- it's actually the other end of the spectrum, which was restricted access. It was unrestricted access versus restricted access. And what this reflected is that those who had access, because there is more access in Asia, were more concerned about the restrictions. Those in Africa just wanted any access, because they don't have access.
But just to respond to the question. I agree, I think that access goals and rights goals are complementary. And I'm not sure why we have to have the dichotomies in the Internet governance discourse. It's often privacy is put against security. And now we have access versus rights. So I think that is just, you know, a general reflection.
And I would agree that in the short-term some compromise can be justified.
I also think that people will make their own Internet. I don't think we should underestimate people's capacity to be creative, even with limited access. I would be horrified if I only had Facebook access, but I would probably find ways of still using it creatively. And I think that does happen. And we shouldn't treat people as passive subjects, but I think that's what the Internet.org actually does as well. So I think that there is value in it.
But at the same time, from a longer term perspective, and I think Alison and others have said this, is this really the type of access that is going to bring about the kind of social change, more sustainable development, more open, tolerant societies, more political and public participation? But we have to look at not only limitations and access as being the barriers to access driving development.
These are limitations that exist in society at other levels. Do people have jobs? And are they literate? And do they have access to education? And is, in that particular country, a Government open to public and citizen participation? So those factors would have as much influence on how access is being used as whether that access is limited or zero rated or whatever.
But I am, you know, as Mishi said, it's concerning. Because I think what is happening is that this drive to connect the next billion is leading to compromises in the regulatory environment. And I think allowing anticompetitive practices in the short-term for the sake of connecting more people could have very negative long-term effects.
We have been trying since Telecom's liberalization to establish vibrant IT industries and markets. And I think we're kind of giving up on it if our regulators are supplying these deals with Internet companies, which is a new very important business Sector in the Internet industry. And we are kind of just giving up on localizing and diversifying those markets in a way that I don't think the policymakers or regulators should.
And this is the final comment. I find this framing of connecting the next billion kind of disappointing. I think, as Mishi said, it thinks of people as consumers rather than producers. I think it looks at people as passive, unconnected, waiting to be connected. And I think that influences the policy discourse and it means that certain solutions are not explored. Public access is not sufficiently explored. Community owned as moral infrastructure is not explored. And that for me is what a rights based approach to connecting the unconnected would be. Not just connecting the next billion consumers, but connecting communities, connecting institutions, and just having a more connected and interconnected society at large.
Just a final point, I just want to give the anecdote about how concerning it is when I think businesses can make a good contribution, and I don't think that they shouldn't. I think what concerns me is when they start dominating the policy agenda.
Just as an example, I happened to be in India, when Prime Minister Modi was in the US. And just after India had this extensive interactive participative campaign on net neutrality, and then the Prime Minister goes to the US and hugs Zuckerman. And to me that felt what about the policy process? What happens to that transparency? Why are we allowing good corporate social responsibility efforts to not just be corporate social responsibility efforts, but to shape the policy agenda? So that's my primary concern.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you. And that was a very nice summary of many topics that were touched upon by the panelists. And maybe after all, we can have our cake and eat it, too.
But I would like to now give an opportunity for the panelists to respond to themselves before I open up the debate. This is going to be brief, I promise. I know a lot of you want to speak up. And also we have remote participation. If so, brief comments? Yes, Helani and Alison.
>> HELANI GALPAYA: I think two points. I actually agree with Mishi. I think there are real broad issues and questions about privacy and who's data and who has access to this and what is happening and who is being surveilled, et cetera. I just don't think it's only a zero-rating conversation. I think we have to worry about the issues at an International level if we want to tackle it. For all Internet access. We cannot just talk about who owns my data and what are my privacy concerns and surveillance. We need to have a conversation about Internet access and who owns this. And that is lacking. And again, we're in danger of being sidelined.
And, second, to the point of what Anriette Esterhuysen was saying, we can't be thinking about how some people are using the Internet in some mental model that we have in our heads. In the absence of other alternatives, people use even Internet.org, which some people call the ghetto version of the Internet. But people are organizing themselves. They are using this as a substitute for SMS and voice call, because alternatives are expensive. In Myanmar, political campaigns are on Facebook because nothing else is there. So let's really not, A, be condescending about this social media use and think it's frivolous. And if it's frivolous, so what? That's what they want to use it for.
And, second, there is evidence emerging that it's not the frivolous thing that people, the elite, want to call it.
>> ALISON GILLWALD: One or two similar points I'll try to avoid those. I just wanted to come back to the idea that we honour attentions and access and human rights, and we are all aligned and we can go off into the sunset now.
There is a collision of conditions and practices and ethics around traditional Telco practices, with Internet practices, human rights framework, more Telco and infrastructure typeregulation and approaches to things. So I think in an idealized world, they must be complementary. And even in the real world, we do find that where human rights, Freedom of Expression, limitations on bandwidth, et cetera, that inhibits innovation, actually do have negative implications for the growth of the Internet and the extension of the Internet.
And I think a good example of this or a practical example of this is some of the countries in Africa that are held up as the base practice models for Internet access and expansions of their broadband have the most dreadful human rights records. Perhaps in Egypt they will find that in providing the access they will be confronted by human rights issues and people campaigning against those. So this is the idolized world, and the world of everybody having access to the open Internet is something that we all strive for.
But from a pragmatic and privacy and regulatory world I come from, I know I don't want to spend the whole session on zero-rating, but the zero-rating is firstly anticompetitive, necessarily, and that it limits people in the ghetto. It's not providing gateway. It's not a strategy amongst multiple strategies that people have in order to access the Internet. So we tend to think of it as people only using the Internet.org. But they use that small bandwidth that they buy.
But then they go to the school and get the programs and others to get the basics.
So we look at this in a narrow way and it's not reflecting what is happening on the ground. A lot of that research in the last few years was diminished. But we need some things. And wehave to look at sometimes the zero-rating is a competition enhancing thing. It happens with the smaller Telcos that don't have access. We say well everybody should be allowed and, yes, thereis policy access that needs to be looked at. But you have to look at why this business model has worked. And it's the low-cost business models of mobile penetration in Africa. So to curtail them is not to understand the model. And to not understand the model means we will have little access if we curtail those opportunities. We will create competition enhancing things. And because they are marketing mechanisms, they are short-term. They put in multiple things and they will play themselves out. And we will still have been having this conversation when Telcos went on to other ways of leveraging ways to get the information that they want and to sell on to their own businesses.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
I see a very interesting debate emerging between pragmatism and idolism.
And I'll turn to Mishi and Juan and Martin. I ask you to be brief, because the audience would like to comment as well. Thank you. Eduardo.
>> EDUARDO BERTONI: Thank you.
I think this is a very inspirational debate. I think we focus on the people that are not connected to the Internet. And we think that it is good to be connected to the Internet. We have to have that assumption. The next question is what we should do to connect those people to the Internet. Of course, one question is what means to be connected to the Internet? But I cannot, you know, develop each of these statements.
But let's say that it is good for people today who are not connected today to be connected to the Internet. The first question is what to do? Who has the obligation to connect the people to the Internet? And if we talk about obligations, I go back to the first question. Because if we accept that access is a right, per se, the main obligation is coming from the States. If access to the Internet is a human right, the States have an obligation to provide the fulfillment and enjoyment of human rights.
And, in fact, I -- this debate about if technology could be a right or technology could be an enabler is an ongoing debate. Some countries are including in the Constitution access to the Internet as an constitutional right. So there is obligation of the State to provide access to the Internet.
But if we are going in that direction, I heard here that maybe we will need to do compromise, because the State can start doing some sort of regulations that oblige who? The State? ThePrivate Sector to connect people to the internet? So maybe there should be some compromise. But what kind of compromise are we thinking about? Who are we going -- are we going to affect the people that are already connected by trying to connect the people that are not connected? I'm just asking these questions.
But again, I'm going to the beginning, because if it is important to connect people that are not connected to the Internet, who has the obligation to do that? What are the actors that should intervene in that direction?
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
Mishi?
>> MISHI CHOUDHARY: Thank you. A few points. I think that four or five, but I can't count them.
But I don't think anyone is disputing that we need access. I think we need more infrastructure. I think the Telcos failed us. I think the Government failed us. And I think we do need some innovative ideas. We need to encourage the spread of funds. We need Government to nuture competition. We need participation of free access by local Government in schools and libraries. We like various other experiments.
We're not saying no to all of these. But then there are multiple strategies, and if one strategy is bad, why don't you just drop it? You have the answer of equal rating. A Telecom in India is offering now the entire net. Yes, it's limited in terms of -- Vins Cerf said yesterday, this is not about limiting bits, it's about the speed where you can limit it. If you have multiple strategies, drop the bad one. So five years down the line we will be back to the same fight about all the next billion. Now they are online, let's fight about the privacy today. Why not have the fight right now. Don't time shift it. Drop the strategy.
I agree and celebrate the democratization which the social media brought in. As a lawyer, I fought for the Freedom of Expression and of Facebook and Google and all intermediary liabilitieswhen they are not sure if they were in India. I fight for these things. I love the fact that they celebrate and make everybody talk. But you cannot just give up. If you are going to say free speech and expression is great, but privacy and surveillance is something which we are not sure about because right now we are not clear about what should or should not be done, Governments, yes, there is universal service obligation funding.
Some countries, in India, we are sitting on $4 billion. There are strategies about they are only vendor allowed, no rurals are allow. Just drop the bad strategy, have the good strategies. Nobody is an enemy here. We are all trying to get to something, together. We just want good strategies to do this.
I do want to say one more thing about the numbers. Digital Empowerment Foundation is an organization in India, an APC partner, actually does work on the grass-roots. Bringing innovation actually in the villages where nobody is going to put a tower, because it's not going to give them money. And I'm a lawyer for a project, an amazing project which we will be demonstrating on Friday, Freedom Box Project. It's a $35 router that can prevent your privacy, it can be a hot spot. People are innovating, and DEF is the one who talks about access means people cannot connect, not somebody who has a cell phone. And then you say well, we brought you the zero-rating things on some Net. You were already on some Net, now you increase that pot.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you. Good and best strategies, that is an interesting point and hopefully we can agree on what those are.
First I'll turn to Martin.
>> MARTIN WASERMAN: Thank you. I just want to spend one or two minutes explaining a bit more. Internet.org is a project that has many strategies. Because Facebook is looking on drone-based and other technology, WiFi expansion, and now there is one called now Free Basics Services, the idea behind free basic services is to, for once, to be the home run for the brother Internet. The idea here is to expose people that do not have connection to the Internet to our initial set of content, with the objective of then making them full users of the Internet. There's no objective of keeping users within a certain content. On the contrary, on average, we have seen that people are bottom line 50 percent faster after the launch of Free Basics. And 50 percent of those users begin paying for the other access within 30 days after being online for the first time.
I just want to point out that when we want to get to better policies about Internet access, I do believe also that Facebook has, this year in particular, has made substantial changes to theprogram by hearing most of their critics. This year, Free Basics became a platform so any developer who posts the technical guidelines can be on Free Basics. Now the connection between the client and the end website is fully encrypted, which enhances security and of course privacy. And the program is open to any operator. And it's not exclusive for a nonoperator.
So I understand that we may not be in the same place in every bit of the program, but I do want to say that the idea of Free Basics is again to get someone up on the Internet and to provide proof that people that start using the Internet then move to the next level, which is full open access to the Internet.
Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Martin.
And I'll give the -- a very short commentary opportunity for Juan. And then Carolina and then we will open it up for the audience.
>> JUAN JUNG: Thank you. I agree with what has been said here, that the last two billion was much more hard than the next billion. And I think also that if the -- that the infrastructure is the key part of this. But we cannot say simply that companies have failed because it needs investments and somebody has to pay. For instance, in Latin America, in order to close the digital divide by 2020, we need $400,000 million, and somebody has to pay that investment. So we have restrictions, investments needed, income levels, we have some restrictions. We have some barriers, and as a result of that, we -- I agree that we must think out of the box to be able to find out which way we can tackle these barriers.
Just one example of one out-of-the-box thinking, we may have other ones. In the case of zero-rating, we have -- we should not see it as a model where there is only one content that you can have. No. We must see it as a model in a good way without disturbing competition and a model that may have different pricing frameworks. Some contents that sponsor the service, for instance, may be free. The other ones have a price scheme.
And I'll just want to end with a recommendation, there is a recent paper written by Roseline Leiton that studied in a sample of countries what were the effects of zero rated, if they have negative effects harming competition. She found no evidence of that. She found no evidence that zero-rated services will prevent the emergence of new applications and services. She found no evidence that users do not go beyond zero-rated services. So we must take this into account. And maybe not every zero-rated service can help us, but if we do it correctly, without harming competition, and keeping some key principles, it is an effective way for moving forward. But we must also say that zero rated is not everything. We can have other out-of-the-box ideas. The key thing here is that we need to think out of the box to be able to tackle the barriers that we have.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Juan. And thank you for the mention to the importance of the academic community, which I represent, and the importance of more recent evidence to bring to this debate. And hopefully we can share the paper on our tweet feed, if you can please share that.
Briefly, Carolina, the last comment.
>> CAROLINA BOTERO: I wanted to say something else. We were part of the foundation survey in ten different countries in the south. It was the only Latin American country. And I would say that compared to Africa and the Arab world, there was a huge difference. We were surveying women in poor neighborhoods in a big city. So we did that part in Colombia, in Bogata. The pointer here is that what we found is that at least 95 percent of the women there were connected to Facebook and 35 percent of them never went out of Facebook. We have a big problem here. The moment that the Internet came out in Colombia, it was the same people when Facebook for free was out. And right now people don't have the difference of what the Internet is and what is Facebook. And that puts another layer of difficulties in understanding the situation.
I don't know whether this data that you mentioned today is about Internet all or is about Facebook, and those are two different ways of seeing this. There is a big confusion there. And what I -- I understand that it doesn't matter if you are using only Internet, it's not a problem. The problem is when you are allowed to only stay there. And that's a problem.
When the Government says that for a big part of their program, on inclusion and access, is what -- there is a social responsibility of an enterprise, this has another effect. There is a huge investment in Colombia for entrepreneurship on apps. And what happens with this investment when you have only a partial access to the Internet? I do think that it is important to think of these issues from a public perspective, and to consider something that Martin also says, that there are different people with different conditions, which means that may not been an issue for the enterprises, for corporations, but it has to be an issue for the Government to think on how to reach everybody, not just consumers.
They need to foster active people, active users, not just passive consumers.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Carolina.
We have 20 minutes for an open debate. I hope to give everybody as much or as many people as possible the opportunity.
So please, I ask people to be as concise as possible and of course start by stating your name and your affiliation.
Three hands here. I'll go in this order, but please keep your comments as brief as possible.
Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: I'll keep it brief by talking fast. I'm Mike. And I work with R Street. I was an EFF employee.
I worked on rights issues and Internet issues for a long time. This year I worked in Cambodia. One of the things we worked on with local groups was Internet requirements. So we think a lot about rights frameworks and we were inspired by Marco de Civil and others. One of the things we found is that while trying to teach the crowd sourcing process on Wiki, people went to Facebook and used it for political engagement. They preferred that, where they could share pictures of their meeting and they could do things easily. Many of them didn't have a clear idea of the difference between Facebook and the Internet, and it didn't matter. They used the tools that they felt good about, that they felt human about. And it was not sort of the predicted consumer use. It was really about the intimate use and being able to share ideas.
So as a person who is, you know, for longer -- technically for probably 20 years before they called it net neutrality, I've working for it for a long time. I see the value in zero-rating. But I see the lack of value if there is a net neutrality that nobody can afford. If you have a neutral platform that nobody can get access to. If you have a wonderful rate set, but there's no wires or towers where you are, it doesn't matter how fair your system is, because it's fair and out of reach of everybody in the rural areas. And I've had the privilege of working in Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines, and it's been exciting to see the amount of political engagement that just naturally follows when you give people access.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you for the comments.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. Am I audible? Good morning. My name is Sharda. I'm a student from the National Law School in India, conducting research on platforms. The discussion is not being competitive in terms of the different access policies that are currently being used. And I have some experience from the Indian context on other access policies that were utilized, such as theNational Fiber Networks, which had the plan to connect 250,000 religious by laying out optical fiber cables. 8 percent of that plan's target has been achieved.
There is also the problem of the universal service obligation funds not being utilized. I think when we look at zero-rating, we don't need to look at it in terms of is it good or bad, but in terms of how can we consider zero-rating in the context of different policies that different actors are currently using in order to provide Internet. And one of the reasons, upon reflection of things failing in India, was the idea that there was no content provisions in local accessible languages. Providing fiber access and giving every village a center does not mean that people access the Internet because the Internet is in a language that they don't understand, or most of it, and they cannot access it. And from primary research in the villages, I can say that accessibility to the Internet becomes even more important and should be considered as an important value when conceptualizing the basket of rights and creating access.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Roger Matthews, I represent COOI. We represent just about all of the major operators in India, accounting for 80 percent of the revenue stream. I'm amused when lawyers talk about privacy. When you reduce the number of caveats in the "I agree to," when they say that, they have to understand the legalese that is there, and that is the greatest deprivation of our privacy. If we have to look at issues, we have to look at both sides. If you have no content, you have no access issues. If you have no access issues, you have no content issues. So we have to look at this in the total.
And the problem is that we have to defocus from the consent. Folks who create applications on the Internet think nothing of optimizing their file structures. Again, to say look we have limited bandwidth, especially in India, mobility is the only name of the game. There are other networks that are usually available in other countries, they are almost all provided. In India when it happens? What happens? It becomes a policy issue, a Government issue. It becomes a regulative and a judicial interpretive issue. It hasn't worked in India.
Look at all of the poverty eradication programs that have not worked? Why? Because we have not been able from a private Sector perspective to immobilize the funding. And this is an issue that must be addressed in terms of how we do forward.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: I'll turn to Steve.
>> AUDIENCE: Steve Song from the Network Startup Resource Center. I must say, as I was preparing for this Internet Governance Forum and particularly the plenary session on zero-rating on Thursday, I think I was dazzled by the level of effort and scholarship that has gone into analyzing this issue of zero-rating, of gathering evidence where evidence is available. And of, in fact, the number of sessions on network neutrality and zero-rating that we're having. Even this session is about zero-rating, which I find amazing some in ways.
As has been pointed out, one way of addressing this issue of neutrality is simply by creating alternatives in the last mile and access level, creating choice for consumers. And, you know, the Internet, the one thing, the Internet loves diversity. But the one place where we have no diversity is in the last mile. It's a monoculture. And what I find slightly dismaying is that the level of debate about last mile policy and regulation about strategies that might enable diversity in the last mile is richly -- virtually nonexistent at the IGF. And I encourage you to stay for the session on spectrum. It's things like spectrum policy that can open up diversity in the last mile that at address these issues at a basic level.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Jose, a brief statement. >> JOSE' CLASTORNIK: Access to the Internet was a statement of the WSIS process. Just to remind, it's more than ten years now that we were speaking and writing about this. It's not something that we're just finding now is a problem. It's something that has five years of process of the WSIS process, and ten years now, if I have ten years.
So I think more or less what we have seen is the lack of a Public Policy in some countries and the lack of executions in others.
That brings us to this vacuum. This lack of choice, let's say. That brings us to the problems that we are discussing now. So since I wanted to remember where things began, it's the statements that all the participants showed, and they have 15 years. We still state that we must do it, but we don't do it. That's the main problem, I think. And the way that someone tries or not to fill this vacuum is the discussion now.
But for me, the discussion is about a vacuum. That's what is lacking. And the lack is all the solutions.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Jose.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you. Just to pick up on some of the comments. I would agree that we shouldn't look at this in absolutist terms, and I do think there is value in efforts such as Internet.org or Free Basics. But I think Steve has really captured what I was trying to say. Because what then happens is that that then shapes the debate. And it's not just shaping the debate away from talking about diversity in terms of models to provide access at the last mile, it's also, I think, creating poverty in the debate about content. So we are talking about zero-rated content. We are actually talking about Internet.org. But what about zero-rated content for eGovernment applications, or zero-rated content for certain public health content? Which these examples do exist in places. And I think that's, unfortunately, the effect of when a big player enters this debate and starts having direct access to policymakers, in context where policymaking and regulating is already challenged, as you were saying, and not efficiently looking at creating more choice and more debate. And many regulators and policymakers in Developing Countries do lack capacity.
So then, unfortunately, again, it has the effect of capturing time, energy, and also opposition in ways that actually -- it's just not sufficient to address the access problems in the longer term.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
>> SEBASTIAN BELLAGAMBA: Just to complement what was said before, I think there's two big challenges here. One is the access one that we discussed already.
But the second challenge, I would summarize it this way. We connected half of the world population to the Internet. But the other half that is not really connected is having some trust issues with the Internet. So that is another component that we have to address. People are having some trust issues with the Internet. Some privacy concerns. That involves many of the things that have been discussed here. Some privacy issues, surveillance issues, et cetera, that have to be addressed because the access experience is not just connecting the people. It's also making this a free and open Internet, a trustable source for economic and social development.
Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
Are there more questions from the audience or remote audience?
>> REMOTE MODERATOR: Hello. We don't have remote questions. Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Okay. Thank you.
We still have a few more minutes. And if there are no more questions -- yes, sir.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes, on topic, obviously it's a hot debate recently. And it seems like a lot of the discussion happens at two ends of the extreme. We talk about the utopian view of having all legalitarian access and on the dystopian view of some company controlling the entire Internet experience. But in reality, I think, you know, it's really something in between that is the actual fact.
One -- a few things I think in my mind are important, one of which is having alternatives. Like if a locality has no Internet connection and coming in with a zero-rating access, that is -- that may be a problem. Because you know then that's the only Internet experience that is being covered there. And we don't have the benefit of ramping up, which some of the defense of the zero-rating concept has.
Because you ramp up to what? You can't change to another provider. So part of that needs to have some policies in place to ensure that, you know, those localities, some competition needs to exist before or at the same time these type of services go into play.
And edging to the other extreme is about leaving it all to the market. But the reality is, I think, that if the market is working, then the -- it would have already covered that place. It's apparent that there's some market value that happened and therefore some intervention in terms of Government policies or regulations are important. So it's all about kind of a balance in that sense.
And finally, you know, just offering an experience back in Hong Kong, from where I am, you know, some of the policies in place, for example, having a strong Internet exchange, having a strong, you know, set of policies that forces the incumbent to open up the pipelines are very important to lower the barriers for IXP to come in. And those are, you know, important I thinkpolicy aspects. So it's not just about the industry. The Government has a role to play and that's how I see it.
There has been a zero-rating things, and one of the experiences is my mom. I tried to get access for her with the first smartphone. The first plan I got her, there was unlimited What's Up and Facebook. But more limited to the full Internet. She did ramp up to -- now she is demanding much more access to it. So this is not entirely not valuable. But it can reconcile withrights. That's my points.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you.
>> HELANI GALPAYA: Yesterday and today from you, I heard this concern that when people get on the Internet.org for the first time, they don't have the option of going on to the full Internet. Where does this come from? The possibility is Internet.org blocks them. And you can give an answer. I don't think that is the case.
Second, the people don't know there is something called the full Internet and they don't go there and therefore we haven't done our job as Civil Society to educate about the possibilities.
Third, they know about it, but they can't go on it because it's so expensive -- damn expensive because the regulators have not done their job. So if somebody can get Internet.org to a village that was not previously connected, it's not running on the VPN, it's running on the open Internet access, that means there are practices that are implemented by operators preventing the users.
We studied some users in India where they are afraid to click on videos because they don't know how much they will be charged. Or they go outside and the data depletes because the warning didn't come and they don't know that they were going outside. But what you were saying on getting on Internet.org and there not being a technical way of going outside to me doesn't sound right.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Helani. a very insightful focus on consumer education and on issues such as privacy and cost.
Yes, I have first Martin.
>> MARTIN WASERMAN: Just trying to react to the last comment. So how -- how Free Basics works is that it's unbundled from a paid data plan. Meaning that if someone does not have a data plan, but its operator has allowed for Facebook to have Free Basics, that user without having any data plan, just a cell phone that connects a browser, and a sim card, they can access the Internet -- Free Basics. Sorry.
If that user eventually leaves the Free Basics, so the general rules apply, if they have a plan they can go ahead. If they don't, they can't.
But, again, I would say that the compelling element here is that as some of you expressed already, there are user cases where people want to move beyond the initial content that they are exposed to by what is Free Basics, which is a zero-rated app, basically, and move to the real Internet. Then there is a question of how much does it cost to move to the open Internet and what are the options that a given user has in a given community to do that? But I think that is something outside of the reach of the Free Basics.
Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you. We have less than one minute left. And it will be shared between Alison and Jose, but it has to be extremely brief.
>> ALISON GILLWALD: I wanted to add on to this point by saying that it's certainly a consumer education issue. But there is an opportunity for regulatory intervention, and I know that basically our regulators know that there are bigger problems and the last thing they are doing is banning these types of services. But in terms of getting warning, it's taken time for Telcos to tell people that they are leaving the data services, but that is happening. It's happening by getting the Telcos to agree to it.
And the other thing is what plan they are going on to. So whether the Telcos are exploiting the zero-rated service in order to get people -- not only on to the paying data services, but those data services are not coming down as they had been going down before the zero-rated services were introduced. But as I said, we are still trying to find the evidence of that.
>> JOSE' CLASTORNIK: One, the national Telco or the national owner of Telco gave access to eGovernment, eHealth and eLocation data sites, free. That is close.
And the other, there was an agreement from an allocation plan with Google to use the Google facilities for the children. The last one, I have a lot of rush, the first one not.
So yes, things that can happen. So, one, if you have a lot of possibilities of access and choices, the first one that was a Government response, it was not so much friction.
The second one, which Google has no competitor in the country -- really, there was no competitor for the local industry, there is a lot of friction. And the frictions went to other things like private Internet security. We have a framework with regulators from the privacy and protection and security that put things in perspective. But just to know, we will be discussing the things with different tones, depending each one on each situation. And each solution for each country must take this into account.
Thank you.
>> HERNAN GALPERIN: Thank you, Jose.
We are out of time. I want to thank the panelists. We had an interesting session with a lot of interesting questions and answers, and of course now we are getting close to resolving thequestions, but we have a whole week ahead of us for continuing the discussion.
Please join me in thanking the panelists.
Thank you.
(Applause)