Russia and LinkedIn-global governance, corporations and the search for new territories.

In response to Africa Tech Roundup. 

Understanding the Russian Position

The biggest earners for a Nation that is itching to reassert itself on the global stage are oil and gas. But with the current difficulties that she is facing with LinkedIn, we argue that the world may be readying itself for the emergence of a new mover-Data. Yes data is the new oil and rightly so given everything we have spoken about regarding the information age. 

So we expect many fights regarding security, cryptography and intelligence all attempting to deal with the forces of Nationalism on one hand and Globalism on another. 

Corporations realize the need for statehood

This is the dilemma that most of the corporations are having to tackle. How big can get without needing and demanding a space through which you can assign your sovereignty (a la Waterworld with Costner or Elysium with Jodie Foster and Matt Demon-both of which are at least in part set on alternative territories) . Can and should big business groups begin to claim statehood especially in defense of their well earned and growing citizenry. Should they stand by and watch as governments raid their platforms in search for wild geese?

A few months ago, a business man floated the idea of buying an Island and creating a new nation where we could place all those refugees who were struggling to find a country that was willing to take them in. Around the same time this debate was taking place, google and yahoo were working in creating better Internet using untraditional means like floating balloons and non-stop Internet cloud powered solar planes. In addition to this there was a suggestion (by Elon Musk...if memory serves me right) about the need to begin to claim territory that is technically no man's land (in International Waters). 

You can tell that there are frustrations over statehood and data and business and global citizenry. Maybe this is also a weakness that the UN has to deal with especially given the absence of an independent spot on the earth upon which to claim its strength. 

Corporations and the defense of Human Rights

Ideally, the corporation should be able to protect the rights of the user especially because the agreement we sign is with them and not necessarily with our governments. Who should we trust more with our information especially if we should need direct protection from the nations to which we claim citizenship? After all the contributions that have been made by Whistleblowers, it is still very difficult to find a country that will take in Assange or that was willing to take in Snow. We saw a little of this when for example Apple struggled to give out access to its precious code when the security services in the U.S were trying to break into the secure IPhone. Yahoo also has had some difficulty trying to figure out the nature of the threats that it has faced regrading data breaches. It is more imaginable to think of and salute a cartel based and designed in support of oil producers but will we see the emergence of a data cartel? Sponsored or supported in part by hackers and whistleblowers (CC anonymous). What do you as governments do when the CEO of a technology company has more valuation than some countries or states in your own territory? 

Maybe what the Russians have done is to realize and to claim rights over data that LinkedIn is responsible for exploring and extracting and now want to be able to claim access to the pipeline? 

We leave that to you.