ServInt Answers: What Does “Network Compliance” Mean?

Hi, I’m Mike Witty, ServInt’s new Director of Network Compliance.

To those outside of our industry, the words “Network Compliance” probably sound a bit cryptic – even bureaucratic.  But network compliance actually affects every single customer we have.  I’d like to take this opportunity to explain how, and why.

First, a little about me. I’ve been at ServInt for more than ten years now — roughly 100 years in Internet time. I first cut my teeth as a member of ServInt’s Managed Services Team and worked my way up to management from there. Over the years, I’ve seen our service offerings evolve dramatically, and it’s been an exciting ride.

When I started here in 2000, the vast majority of the content on the Internet was static – basically little strings of HTML.  These sites rarely broke on their own, if ever. Since then, there have been seismic shifts in web technology and there is a constant race to remain up-to-date and competitive.

But, as always, there’s a tradeoff.  For every internet app that changes our lives for the better, there’s a new security concern, and a new way for the bad guys to reach out and cause trouble.  As head of ServInt’s Network Compliance Team, my job is to protect and defend our customers, content creators, and ServInt as a whole, to the best of our ability. Here are just a few of the challenges my team and I face daily and some tips on how to avoid becoming a victim.
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Why America isn’t the bad guy on the Internet

If you use the internet for leisure, do business on the internet for profit, or count on the internet to spread your message, you are at a disadvantage if you are not doing so in America.

There, I said it.

That wasn’t meant as a slight to our friends and colleagues abroad. I don’t mean this as an attack on any one country or continent. Rather, I’m simply challenging the assertion that the United States is somehow the bad guy when it comes to freedom of speech on the web. I read countless stories that argue that sites that are critical of the government, large corporations, industries, political figures, etc., should host offshore in Canada or Europe because their sites are simply unsafe in the U.S.

This is little more than classic FUD.

Among bloggers, particularly in the tech world, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) is loathed for its supposed coziness with the recording industry and the MPAA, among other content organizations. As a consumer, and as a geek, I personally share a lot of the same concerns and frustrations other users do when it comes to the principles of fair use. Believe me when I say I find DRM as annoying and intrusive as everybody else does. I also can see plainly that the “anti-circumvention” aspects of the DMCA are genuinely bad for consumers.

But the bigger picture here is that significant portions of this law, particularly Article II as it pertains to our industry, are actually well written. The DMCA isn’t perfect, it does a lot of annoying things but it also does a lot to protect the rights of ISP’s, online services, publishers, and users alike.

More after the jump.

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BoingBoing, Web Hosting and the First Amendment

I want to share with all of you a letter that I sent to The Rachel Maddow Show this weekend. She had Xeni Jardin on, who writes for BoingBoing.net, which I love. My big problem with the segment is that it left viewers with an overall impression that the DMCA was anti-free speech and that people should host offshore. I don’t agree, and to be fair I don’t know if Xeni does either, as it wasn’t even the primary focus of her appearance and they only discussed it briefly and in too little detail.

But our industry doesn’t land in the news all that often, and to appear in this context is what some would refer to as an ‘epic fail’. I understand that given the short time available on a news segment like that to explain our industry, the laws that govern it and the different types of players within it, a lot was left unexplained. But that’s exactly why I needed to take the opportunity to set the record straight.

Video and more after the jump.

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