Whilst I agree with you the WC3 has a significant role in building trust online through the rules of the Internet. Spam as you say is a good example. But I would contend that just as the role of government has been fundamental in building trust in commerce (often as you say through regulation of emerged practices) the role of government in regulating the online economy will increasingly play a more important role in building trust for the broader community. An example might be as Ralph Nader and his contribution that stimulated government regulation in designing safer cars, we will see similar campaigns for government action because people feel unsafe online.

I would not agree that I have a “simple and technical” view of trust. I share with you the observation that no amount of law of property and contract substitutes for the trust necessary to make most commerce work – that I give you money and expect the goods in return, or that I do not need to spend all my time protecting my resources from theft.

But in the bulding of trust in the online world I still maintain that there is more to be done by the “designers of the Internet” (which happens to be a standards boby) than by Government. And as your LinkedIn reference to the post was headed “Has the Government got the focus for the NBN right” I thought it worthwhile reflecting that trust in the online world is still more about architecture than Government regulation.

As an example the designers of the Internet could eradicate SPAM by changing the rules.

Payment system law has always followed innovation, not led it. Money came into being before it was regulated. Cheques came into being before it was regulated. Payment cards (American Express) came into being before they wre regulated. No amount of multilateral financial negotiation will create the system from nothing. By the same token I don’t know of anything in the law that currently is impeding the creation of any other payment system. I’m still fascinated by some of the innovations, such as the fact that Amazon now quotes me prices in $AUS – and the process by which iTunes runs a “mini-account” of purchases over one day before debitting either the credit card or your store account.

By the way, linking the two above I blieve that the bulk of credit card fraud still occurs from credit card details handed over physically with the card (in bricks and mortar shops) not from details obtained online. They are, however, still mostly used in transactions online.

It seems you have a rather simple and technical view of what trust is and have not considered how trust in data, applications and most of all people will drive the economy. Whilst standards are important (we all need to know that it is safer to drive on the right in the US and left in the UK) it is the culture of respect for life that ultimately makes it safe to use the roads. Trust in an online economy is about stimulating collaboration at a distance and creating an environment that inspires innovation. Standard bodies cannot do this and government alone cannot either. But nevertheless for the NBN to achieve the lofty objectives being discussed will require this to be addressed. You are entitled to your view that these are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of things but that makes me conclude you have missed the essential point.

On payment systems I would argue that there are many elements to getting this right and that consumer protection, contract law, international trade law etc etc are essential and whilst the banks will provide the products such as debit and credit cards the success of payments systems does require new policy settings especially internationally.

If the tax system could look after itself then Australia would not have nearly 10,000 pages of tax legislation! Most tax systems are in a mess. The challenge for all governments is substantial. Google pays too much of its tax bill in Ireland and too little in the UK as just one example.

Thanks for your support for different copyright laws.

I also get the point that part of this transformation is the greater capacity to measure “stuff” and to proces that data. I’m not so sure it is inherently “democratic”, but nor do I share the fears that it creates greater means for control.

In geo-politics the three probably greatest effects we could label to date are (1) the collapse of communism as the people in those states could see that the description of the West peddled by their rulers was false – but that was as much television sgnals as anything else (2) the reporting of war wherein “citizen journalists” can report from inside the battle zone (be that external war or civil war) and finally (3)the development of international terrorism as practiced by Al Qaeda. You need to see my blog for some of these latter comments.

The four critical issues you mention are relativelt minor in the grand scheme of things, and ultimately will need to be resolved by the IETF and like bodies not necessarily Governments.

1. Trust in the Internet needs to be built from the standards of the Internet. At the moment the Internet standards are still mostly controlled by the children of the 1968 students movement and similar European outbreaks. It is all peace, love and trust, with a good measure of cynicism and hence caveat emptor. The Internet is thus far designed for the digital literati, not the masses.

2. The reliable means of exchange will evolve. “Beans” were simply too early. You can’t create the payment system before there are things to pay for, money follows trade not the reverse. Visa and Mastercard will either develop something or suddenly wonder where their market went. It might also rely on some of the developments in 1 above, that is far more reliable means of end user authentication. It cannot be too far away from the days when biological data is used by the ICT to actually identify the individual – no more magnetic strips or chips. But retinal scans will be the go because they don’t give law enforcement information that universal fingerprint IDs would.

3. The tax system will look after itself. What won’t is the “nation state” – see my blog to read about Philip Bobbitt’s books. In reality the digital ecoomy just makes taxation easier as more and more transactions occur through an ICT system.

4. This is the bit that caught my attention. We don’t need necessarily stronger copyright laws we just need different ones. The US in its various trade agreements has kept extending the duration of copyright (referred to as the Mickey Mouse clause) way beyond the limits necessary to maintain the incentive to create. Greed usually results in theft, so in part that has been the global response. But where better distribution occurs the system works better. iTunes works, Kindle works. Even YouTube is now running a really good model of copyright management. It will be interesting to see how IPTV is implemented in the NBN. It is not too hard to suggest that datacasting servers operating in the NBN could add the kind of functionality YouTube does now on copyright material.

As to your conclusion, the simple answer is both. The seeds of our destruction have already been sown – but that “destruction” is still a long long way away. Even with the most catastrophic of climate change outcomes a few million humans can be sustained. The “combined genius of the world” will create a better place etc…but there might be hiccups along the way, and the benefits may not be equitably distributed.