"The Accountable Net"

Thanks to QuickLinks we learned about an interesting paper: "The Accountable Net: Peer Production of Internet Governance" by David R. Johnson, Susan P. Crawford and John G. Palfrey Jr. (548kb PDF, April 2004: Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 97; Cardozo Public Law Research Paper No. 87; Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2004-04). From the abstract: "Three problems of online life - spam, informational privacy, and network security - lend themselves to the peer production of governance. Traditional sovereigns have tried and, to date, failed to address these three problems through the ordinary means of governance. The sovereign has a role to play in the solution to each of the three, but not as a monopoly and not necessarily in the first instance. A new form of order online, brought on by private action, is emerging in response to these problems. If properly understood and encouraged, this emerging order could lead to an accountable internet without an offsetting loss of those aspects of online life that we have found most attractive..."