User Unknown (WAS: really amazon?)

Stephen Satchell list at satchell.net
Tue Aug 13 22:56:20 UTC 2019


On 8/13/19 3:10 PM, Matthew Petach wrote:
> With a global company, there's no such thing
> as a local natural monopoly in play; how would
> you assign oversight to a global entity?  Which
> "public" would be the ones being protected?
> The city of Seattle, WA, where Amazon is
> headquartered?  The State of Washington?
> The United States, at a federal level?   What
> about the "public" that uses Amazon in all
> the other countries of the world?

Consider how radio, television, and telephony grew and became regulated.
 (For a moment there, it felt like a discussion that I would have on the
CyberTelecomm mailing list.)  Each country would regulate the monopoly
in the manner best suited for that country.  Amazon would need to set up
divisions in each country, or union of countries such as the EU.

> There's no way to make a global entity a
> regulated public utility; we don't have an
> organization that has that level of oversight
> across country boundaries, unless you start
> thinking about entities that can enforce *treaties*
> between countries.

Actually, you'd be surprised to learn we already have infrastructure in
place to do exactly that.  The International Telecommunication Union is
a fine example of how this could be done.  Study up on it.  From my
experience in the telco and modem world, the individual countries have
working parties for each element.  The working parties develop Standards
(the initial cap is intentional) within each country.  The output from
the working parties in each country send their recommendations to a
government bureau -- in the United States, that would be a working party
associated with the State Department.  (For example, my work on in-band
modem control went through TIA/EIA TR-29, which then was passed on to
Study Group D, which went to the ITU.)

> And I'm not sure I'd want our Ambassadors
> being the ones at the table deciding how best
> to regulate Amazon.   :/

That's just the point.  The regulation would *not* be done by
ambassadors.  The treaties, rule, regulations, and procedures are
*already* in place to smooth the process through people that are not
political appointees.

Regulation of Amazon would probably be broken into parts: technical,
policy, managment, auditing, perhaps more.  Policy would originate in
the USA with Congress, with help from the industry.  Other parts would
be parceled out to the people better (not necessarily the best) equipped
to do the job.

And that's my pair-o-pennies on the subject.  Other people may have
differing opinions.





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