Next generation policy for the e-communications sector: The role of the end user and technology

Abstract

Recent technological developments in the e-communications sector have lowered the threshold for users of information and communication technology (ICT) to enter the virtual domains of the Internet and to start playing other roles in society. ICT users have shifted their role from passive receivers of information and media content towards an active role in becoming producers, like in user generated content, or owners of infrastructure components, like in WiFi hotspots. The end user is not 'just' end user anymore. The trend in technological innovations undoubtedly will encourage this role shifting even further. This raises policy issues such as for the governance of privately held components of publicly accessible infrastructures and such as issues of privacy and security in virtual worlds. These policy issues have a decentralized character that escapes formerly successful central policy arrangements. We claim that policy arrangements should explicitly include a role for end user participation and take the role for technology into account. Coordination mechanisms in Open Software Development are presented as a first starting point towards innovative policy arrangements.