Dear Listers, Might be of interest to some of us. Regards ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: parminder <parminder@itforchange.net> Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 11:26:22 +0530 Subject: [Internet Policy] Now business wants to lead policy making To: "internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org" <internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org> A recent announcement by Alibaba's founder Jack Ma exposes what the real intent, and the problem, with business led multistakeholderism is, something a lot of people/ groups have perhaps innocently got into supporting.... He proposes a new business led initiative to frame global e-commerce rules, which would rival the WTO, which can keep making them for offline trade. And he is entirely serious, with Alibaba already working with a number of groups and intending to present the proposal to G 20 later this year.. To me it is a political shocker, but that is where much of multistakholderism ideology is headed. I wrote an op-ed on this issue in The Hindu, which is at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/a-borderless-economy-that-will-be-co... We must re-assess what does unhinging of the role of legitimate political actors in key public policy areas means. It just transfers power to a few global corporates to runs our societies as a corporatocracy. Many of our discussions here on mulitistakeholderism as a sovereign political form need to be seen in this context. parminder _______________________________________________ To manage your ISOC subscriptions or unsubscribe, please log into the ISOC Member Portal: https://portal.isoc.org/ Then choose Interests & Subscriptions from the My Account menu. -- Barrack O. Otieno +254721325277 +254733206359 Skype: barrack.otieno PGP ID: 0x2611D86A