<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp624990d5yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><div><div>Blessed New Year 2019!</div><div><br></div><div>The arguments and counter in the forwarded message would interest the growing "e-commerce" players.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>"<span><font color="#000000" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt;">Developing countries cannot simply hope that the benefits of their local producers getting new markets through global e-commerce will somehow outweigh the disadvantages of cheap products from mass manufacturing centres inundating their domestic markets. They would be equally misplaced to expect that global e-commerce rules will help the flourishing of their domestic digital platforms, where they already exist. The latter face quick annihilation as soon as global digital majors cast their eyes on the corresponding markets. India, which has been a little ahead of the curve among developing countries (other than China), has already seen its </font></font></font><font color="#000080" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://qz.com/india/1115030/indiatech-org-from-flipkarts-sachin-bansal-to-ola-indias-homegrown-internet-startups-are-ganging-up-against-foreign-rivals/" style="color: rgb(25, 106, 212);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt;">major digital platform companies unionise</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt;"> and seek government protection against global </font></font></font><font color="#000080" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/zvwvmpnpkOnUrXFXGpK88M/Flipkarts-Sachin-Bansal-cites-selective-globalisation-seek.html" style="color: rgb(25, 106, 212);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt;">‘capital dumping’</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt;">."</font></font></font></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Be blessed.</div><div>Regards/Wangari</div><div><br></div><div class="ydp624990d5signature">---<br><font style="font-weight:bold;font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);">Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - </span><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);">"Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".</span></font><br></div></div>
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</div><div id="ydp32ac8bedyahoo_quoted_7237861219" class="ydp32ac8bedyahoo_quoted">
<div style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#26282a;">
<div>----- Forwarded message -----</div>
<div><b>From:</b> parminder <parminder@itforchange.net></div><div><b>To:</b> "governance@lists.riseup.net" <governance@lists.riseup.net>; bestbits@lists.bestbits.net> < <bestbits@lists.bestbits.net></div><div><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, 3 January 2019, 09:31:19 GMT+3</div><div><b>Subject:</b> [bestbits] E-commerce negotiations expected to be launched at Davos - Statement against</div><div><br></div>
<div><div id="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019">
<div>
<p><font face="Verdana">Hi All</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Wishing you all a great 2019!<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">It is expected that plurilateral
negotiations on e-commerce will be launched at the World
Economic Forum's Davos annual meeting last week of Jan 2019,
bypassing the WTO. T</font><font face="Verdana">he African group</font><font face="Verdana"> and</font><font face="Verdana"> India had
blocked attempts at launching ecom negotiations at the WTO
Buenos Aires ministerial in Dec 2017 ... We have prepared the
enclosed and below statement for sign ons. It highlights what is
contained in the proposed rules, what are the proponents' true
motives, why some developing countries get deceived, and why
these rules should be stopped.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">Pl follow the instructions on the statement
for endorsement...An email to be me would work as well.... <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana">best, parminder <br>
</font></p>
<p><br>
<font face="Verdana"> </font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" align="center"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:13pt;" size="3"><b>Statement de</b></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:13pt;" size="3"><b>veloped by </b></font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://justnetcoalition.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:13pt;" size="3"><b>Just Net Coalition</b></font></font></font></a></u></span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" align="center"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:150%;" align="center"><font color="#800000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:17pt;" size="5"><b>E-commerce negotiations
being launched at the WEF </b></font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:150%;" align="center"><font color="#800000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:17pt;" size="5"><b>are really about rules
for digital colonisation</b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" align="center"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:13pt;" size="3"><b>A call to the people and
governments of the world to oppose legitimisation of</b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;" align="center"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:13pt;" size="3"><b>the new land grab of
people’s, communities’, and nations’ data </b></font></font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">World Economic Forum’s
(WEF) Davos meeting in January, 2019, is expected to witness
the launch of plurilateral negotiations on global e-commerce
rules, bypassing the WTO. Dominant digital interests –
global digital business and governments supporting it – plan
the proposed rules to be a blue-print for a whole new global
digital order.</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><b>A new digital social
contract</b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Agrarian-feudal economic
and social relationships centred on land ownership, and
industrial age ones on ownership of industrial and later
intellectual capital. In the digital age, these
relationships will revolve around ownership of data and the
resultant artificial intelligence.</font></font></font><sup><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><a class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a></font></font></font></sup><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> The proposed e-commerce
rules</font></font></font><sup><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><a class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote2anc"><sup>2</sup></a></font></font></font></sup><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> mandate unrestrained
global flow of data – the primary resource of the digital
society. This in essence means that data will be the
property of whoever collects and hoards it. It provides an,
in perpetuity, legitimacy to global data land-grabs by a few
digital corporations such as Facebook, Google, Amazon,
Alibaba, etc. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">These rules would insulate
global digital corporations from national regulation by
disallowing any requirement for their ‘local presence’ in
the domestic territory, and inspection of their software and
algorithms. Digital inter-connections, payments,
authentication, cyber-security, etc, get mostly subject to
global private law – under pro- big business arbitration –
further curtailing the remit of domestic jurisdictions over
global digital interactions. Prohibition against any
border-crossing tax on commercial digital transactions
would, in turn, debilitate the nation state’s finances in
the digital era. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Digital economy is not just
a sector. It pervades and increasingly transforms all
sectors – like the industrial society/economy paradigm did
before it. As every sector and activity becomes digital, and
infused with artificial intelligence, this proposed
political economy and private governance framework for the
digital will dominate all aspects of societies. It will
increasingly upend the social contract that underlies the
nation-state based mixed economy and welfarism for the last
many decades. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Digital opportunities, many
believe, can bring unprecedented prosperity for all. But for
this, digital governance must be based on principles of
social justice and equity within and across societies. This
is required even more in this formative period of the
digital society. Quite the opposite is sought, however,
through rules for global usurpation of the most valuable
digital resource, and hamstringing national regulation. A
few powerful businesses and governments plan to digitally
control all social activities and economic sectors across
the world. The omnipresent tentacles of the Internet,
globally extracting granular data about every person and
thing, underpin these new controls. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><b>The e-commerce chimera</b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">The biggest bluff of global
e-commerce rules is how they get sold in the name of helping
micro, small and medium enterprises in developing countries.
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">So apparently, the new messiahs of small
enterprises in developing countries are going to be a few US
based global digital corporations, that </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=5785&context=ylj" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">monopolise
e-commerce</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> to </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/business-of-brands/fashion-e-tailers-shell-out-30-40-margin-to-e-commerce-platforms/49057016" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">take up to 40
percent commissions</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">, </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/eu-investigates-amazons-collection-of-data-on-marketplace-rivals/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">abuse sellers’ and
manufacturers’ data</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> to manipulate them and/or
</font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><span style="text-decoration:none;">replace their products
by in-house ones</span></font></font></font></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">, are </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/29/amazon-investigated-by-the-german-antitrust-authority.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">most arbitrary and
exploitative</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> in their relationships
with sellers/producers, and beyond national regulations to
impose any fairness on their activities!</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Some developing country
leaders get led to believe that global e-commerce simply
represents a great expansion of the marketplace, opening
more market opportunities for their struggling businesses.
For one, expanded and more open markets are not necessarily
better for their small businesses, an overwhelming majority
of which deal in goods that are easily out-priced by global
mass manufacturing centres like in China. The latter can now
so much more readily penetrate even the remotest local
markets. These leaders that are enthusiastic about global
e-commerce perhaps need to first list the actual goods that
their domestic businesses produce in a globally competitive
manner! Artisan and other cultural goods tend to form the
staple of the ‘global e-commerce for development’ rhetoric,
but they constitute an extremely small part of any economy.
</font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Digitalisation can enhance
efficiencies in every economic activity and layer of the
economy. It is NOT digital efficiencies in the global trade
layer that will bring the most immediate benefits to
developing countries. It will simply expose their vulnerable
economies and markets to endless exploitation. Developing
countries need to first digitalise their domestic production
processes, to produce globally valuable products cheaply.
They must focus on developing domestic digital platforms. In
short, they need to undertake digital industrialisation
before they can benefit from global digital trade. To the
extent that trade across borders also can stimulate
industrialisation, and scale being important for the digital
economy, </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publicationid=2099" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">developing
countries should first collaborate</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> among those with
comparable digital development.</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">The founder of e-commerce
giant Alibaba, Jack Ma, himself considers </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.cw.com.hk/cloud/alibaba-s-jack-ma-e-commerce-will-vanish-soon" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">e-commerce to be an
outdated concept</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">. This clearly underlines
the fallacy of seeing e-commerce primarily as
digitally-expanded marketplaces. What global digital
platforms really do is to re-organise every sector employing
data-based digital intelligence, and then control them in a
monopolistic manner. Such controls tend to be very one-sided
and highly exploitative, with deep lock-ins. This situation
demands new kinds of digital regulation, and national
frameworks mandating local ownership of data for nurturing
domestic digital businesses. The proposed e-commerce rules
pre-empt all such possibilities, which shows how their
proponents know their game well into the future. </font></font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Developing countries cannot
simply hope that the benefits of their local producers
getting new markets through global e-commerce will somehow
outweigh the disadvantages of cheap products from mass
manufacturing centres inundating their domestic markets.
They would be equally misplaced to expect that global
e-commerce rules will help the flourishing of their domestic
digital platforms, where they already exist. The latter face
quick annihilation as soon as global digital majors cast
their eyes on the corresponding markets. India, which has
been a little ahead of the curve among developing countries
(other than China), has already seen its </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://qz.com/india/1115030/indiatech-org-from-flipkarts-sachin-bansal-to-ola-indias-homegrown-internet-startups-are-ganging-up-against-foreign-rivals/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">major digital
platform companies unionise</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"> and seek government
protection against global </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/zvwvmpnpkOnUrXFXGpK88M/Flipkarts-Sachin-Bansal-cites-selective-globalisation-seek.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">‘capital dumping’</font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">A reality check is needed
for the chimera of ‘global e-commerce for development’
created by digital superpowers, with the support of some
donor and international agencies. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><b>Resist digital
colonialism</b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Global business leaders
from the South – like </font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/india-should-never-be-a-digital-colony-like-europe-naspers-ceo-bob-van-dijk/articleshow/63074511.cms" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="3"><span><span style="font-style:normal;"><span style="font-weight:normal;">Bob van Dijk,
CEO of Naspers</span></span></span></font></font></font></span></a></u></span></font><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span style="font-style:normal;"><span>, Africa’s biggest
company; </span></span></span></font></font></font></span><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/mukesh-ambani-says-data-colonisation-as-bad-as-physical-colonisation/articleshow/67164810.cms" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="3"><span><span style="font-style:normal;"><span style="font-weight:normal;">Anil Ambani,
head of India’s largest business house</span></span></span></font></font></font></span></a></u></span></font><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span style="font-style:normal;"><span> </span></span></span></font></font></font></span><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span style="font-style:normal;"><span style="font-weight:normal;">;</span></span></span></font></font></font></span></u></span></font><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span style="font-style:normal;"><span> and </span></span></span></font></font></font></span><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/nilekani-voices-concern-over-data-colonisation-by-global-tech-giants/article9807722.ece" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font size="3"><span><span style="font-style:normal;"><span style="font-weight:normal;">Nandan Nilekani,
Chairman of India’s top IT company</span></span></span></font></font></font></span></a></u></span></font><span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;"><span style="font-style:normal;"><span> – have been w</span></span></span></font></font></font></span><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">arning against data and
digital colonisation. Traders’ groups in many developing
countries are holding protests, and local digital businesses
are complaining, as they face being captured or wiped out by
global digital corporations. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Some developing country
leaders, however, remain blinded by the lure of sitting at
the high table with global digital business leaders, this
time at the snow-white Davos. They keep hoping that these
business leaders will somehow magically usher in the
appropriate digital economy/ society in their countries. </font></font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">It would be useful to
understand the future that dominant digital interests have
in mind through the proposed e-commerce rules. Data flows
unchecked from all countries to a very few global digital
corporations, mostly in the US and some in China. Such
expansive and minute data enables them to develop thorough
real time digital intelligence about every sector and every
single economic activity and actor. It would be as if the
‘brains’ of all physical activities and processes in all
other countries are ‘outsourced’ to these few corporations.
A complete cognitive lock-in and digital intelligence
dependency soon sets the conditions for total economic and
social domination. As it gets entrenched, future options for
developing countries to ever extricate themselves also get
foreclosed. In any case, as explained earlier, the proposed
rules simultaneously de-fang key levers of national digital
regulation, render digital relationships subject to global
private law, and considerably squeeze the taxation base of
the state. </font></font></font> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">The choice of the Mecca of
global business, WEF, for launching this potent new
framework for domination of the world by a few digital
corporations indeed rings of poetic appropriateness! </font></font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">We, the undersigned, call
upon the people and the governments of the world to oppose
this blatant attempt at a new elitist digital social
contract which is nothing but one between the digital
masters and the rest of us, laying out the rules of our
digital servitude for all times to come. </font></font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Let us claim our data, and
our digital future, for ourselves!</font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">Just Net Coalition</font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000">……………………</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">.</font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000">……………………</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font color="#000000"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3">.</font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i>This statement is open
for endorsements by organisations and individuals till
January 15</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><sup><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i>th</i></font></font></sup></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i>, 2019. Please send your
endorsement, or any questions, to </i></font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="mailto:secretariat@justnetcoalition.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i>secretariat@justnetcoalition.org</i></font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i> . Alternatively, you
can endorse it online at </i></font></font></font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://data.justnetcoalition.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i>https://data.justnetcoalition.org</i></font></font></font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><font style="font-size:12pt;" size="3"><i> . </i></font></font></font>
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<div id="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnote1">
<p class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnote"><a class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a>Among others, the prominent author
and public intellectual Y<font color="#000000">uval Harari </font><font color="#000080"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://bdtechtalks.com/2018/01/31/yuval-harari-wef-ai-big-data-digital-dictatorship/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><font color="#000000"> recently employed </font></a></u></span></font><font color="#000000">the an</font>alogy across land, capital and
data ownership.</p>
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<div id="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnote2">
<p class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnote"><a class="ydp32ac8bedyiv9430897019sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote2sym">2</a>First developed as a part of the
Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty, its template of
e-commerce rules has been repeated at all trade discussions that
US and its allies get involved in, including at the WTO. </p>
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