Should Uber require a permit for testing?

The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting on the ongoing battle between Uber and state and local governments. This time it’s their self-driving car. Uber announced last week that they would not bother to seek a permit to test their car, claiming that the law did not require one. The conflict took on a new dimension last week when one of Uber’s test vehicles ran a red light.

Is Uber right in not wanting to seek a permit? Both production and operation of vehicles in the nearly all markets are highly regulated. That’s because auto accidents are a leading cause of death in the United States and elsewhere. The good news is that number is falling. In part that’s due to regulation, and in part it’s due to civil liability laws. I’m confident that Uber doesn’t want to hurt people, and that their interest is undoubtedly to put out a safe service so that their reputation doesn’t suffer and their business thrives. But the rush to market is sometimes too alluring. With the pace of technology being what it is, Uber and others would be in a position to flood the streets with unsafe vehicles, possibly well beyond their ability to pay out damages. That’s when regulations are required.

There are a few hidden points in all of this:

As governments consider what to do about regulating the Internet of Things, they should recognize that much of the Internet of Things is already regulated. California did the right thing by incrementally extending the California Vehicle Code to cover self-driving vehicles, rather than come up with sweeping new regulations. Regulations already exist for many other industries, including trains, planes, automobiles, healthcare, electrical plants.
We do not yet have a full understanding of the risks involved with self-driving cars. There are probably many parts of the vehicle code that require revision. By taking the incremental approach, we’ve learned, for instance, that there are places where the vehicle code might need a freshening up. For instance, self-driving cars seem to be following the law, and yet causing problems for some bicyclists.
IoT regulation is today based on traditionally regulated markets. This doesn’t take into account the full nature of the Internet, and what externalities people are exposed to as new products rapidly hit the markets. This means, to me, that we will likely need some form of regulation over time. There is not yet a regulation that would have prevented the Mirai attack. Rather than fight all regulation as Uber does, it may be better to articulate the right principles to apply. One of those is that there has to be a best practice. In the case of automobiles, the usual test for the roads is this is whether the feature will make things more or less safe than the status quo. California’s approach is to let developers experiment under limited conditions in order to determine an answer.

None of this gets to my favorite part, which is whether Uber’s service can be hacked to cause chaos on the roads. Should that be tested in advance? And if so how? What are the best practices Uber should be following in this context? Some exist.

More on this over time.

Courtesy of Mike Blanche of Google, the map on the left shows in black countries who signed the treaty developed at WCIT, countries in red who indicated they wouldn’t sign the treaty, and other countries who are thinking about it. A country can always change its mind.

Over the next few weeks that map will change, and the dust will settle. The fact that the developed world did not sign the treaty means that the Internet will continue to function relatively unmolested, at least for a time, and certainly between developed countries. As the places that already heavily regulate telecommunications are the ones who are signing the treaty, its impact will be subtle. We will continue to see international regulatory challenges to the Internet, perhaps as early as 2014 at the ITU’s next Plenipotentiary conference. Certainly there will be heated debate at the next World Telecommunication Policy Forum.

This map also highlights that the ITU is the big loser in this debacle. Secretary General Hamadoun Touré claimed that the ITU works by consensus. It’s just not so, when matters are contentious, and quite frankly he lacked the power and influence to bring all the different viewpoints together. This loss of consensus has split the Union, and has substantial ramifications. There is no shared vision or goal, and this will need to be addressed at the next Plenipotentiary conference.

With different sectors and diverse participants, it is hard to lump the Union into a single group. Nations come together to manage radio spectrum in the ITU-R. That’s important because spectrum crosses borders, and needs to be managed. In the ITU-D, both developing and developed countries come together to have a dialog on key issues such as cybersecurity and interoperability. The work of the -D sector needs to be increased. Most notably, their Programmes need even more capability, and the study groups should be articulating more clearly the challenges and opportunities developing countries face.

The -T standardization sector is considerably more complex. It’s important not to lose sight of the good work that goes on there. For example, many of the audio and video codecs we use are standardized in ITU-T study group 16. Fiber transmission standards in study group 15 are the basis for long haul transmission. Study group 12 has some of the foremost experts in the world on quality of service management. However, the last six years have demonstrated a fundamental problem:

At the end of the day, when conflicts arise, and that is in the nature of standards work, because of one country one vote, the ITU-T is catering to developing countries who by their nature are not at the leading edge of technology. The ITU-T likes to believe it holds a special place among standards organizations, and yet there have been entire study groups whose work have been ignored by the market and governments alike. To cater to those who are behind the Rogers adoption curve is to chase away those who are truly in front. This is why you don’t see active participation from Facebook, Twitter, or Google in ITU-T standards, and why even larger companies like Cisco, IBM, HP, and others prefer to do protocol work largely elsewhere.¹

So what can be done?

In practice study groups in ITU-T serve four functions:

develop technical standards, known as recommendations;
provide fora for vertical standards coordination;
direct management of a certain set of resources, such as the telephone number space;
establish accounting rates and regulatory rules based on economics and policy discussions.

The first two functions are technical. The other are political. The invasion of political processes into technical standards development is also a fundamental issue. I offer the above division to demonstrate a possible way forward to be considered. The role of the -D sector should be considered in all of this. Hearing from developing countries about the problems they are facing continues to be important.

The ITU-T and its member states will have the opportunity to consider this problem over the next two years, prior to its plenipotentiary meeting. There is a need for member states to first recognize the problem, and to address it in a forthright manner.

What Does the Internet Technical Community Need to Do?

For the most part, we’re at this point because the Internet Technical Community has done just what it needed to do. After all, nobody would care about regulating a technology that is not widely deployed. For the most part, the Internet Technical Community should keep doing what we’re doing. That does not mean there isn’t room for improvement.

Developing countries have real problems that need to be addressed. It takes resources and wealth to address cybersecurity, for example. To deny this is to feed into a political firestorm. Therefore continued engagement and understanding are necessary. Neither can be found at a political conference like WCIT. WCIT has also shown that by the time people show up at such places, their opinions are formed.

Finally, we must recognize an uncomfortable truth with IPv4. While Africa, Latin & South America still have free access to IPv4 address space, the rest of the world has exhausted its supply. Whenever a scarce resource is given a price, there will be haves and have nots. When the have nots are poor, and they often are, it can always be classed as an inequity. In this case, there truly is no need for such inequity, because IPv6 offers everyone ample address space. Clearly governments are concerned about this. The private sector had better regulate itself before it gets (further) regulated.

Another Uncomfortable Truth

Developing countries are also at risk in this process, and perhaps most of all. They have been sold the idea that somehow “bridging the standardization gap” is a good thing. It is one thing to participate and learn. It is another to impede leading edge progress through bloc votes. Leading edge work will continue, just elsewhere, as it has.

Tag: Regulation