Dissertation Research: Global Standards, Local Cultures: The Politics of Standard-Setting on the World Wide Web

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

Technical standards-those protocols, rules, and codes that specify how a given group of technologies operate and interoperate-play a key role in the development of technology. This dissertation research project will study the design and implementation of technical standards on a global scale. Using a case study approach, the project will trace the evolution of "P3P"-the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project-a computer standard that is currently being developed for the World Wide Web. The designers of P3P claim it is a "policy-neutral" standard: an objective solution that can implemented anywhere, independent of local context. The research project will test this claim by examining the extent to which local social, political, and cultural concerns affect the design and implementation of the standard. Through a combination of interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this project will address three core questions: (1) How do social concerns shape the design of a particular standard? (2) How do social values and assumptions affect its implementation in different cultural environments? (3) How does a given standard, developed within a particular design context, become a "global standard"? Informants will be drawn from three levels: the P3P working group; the standards organization that is responsible for developing P3P; and "external" actors (technologists, policymakers, and privacy advocates) who have contributed to, supported, criticized, or otherwise shaped the development of P3P. Interviews will be conducted in the U.S. and internationally, allowing for comparative analysis across diverse cultural environments. By looking beyond the immediate "designers" of P3P to the broader organizational and social contexts of standards-making, this project will examine standardization not as the work of a single technical group or standards organization, but rather as a global phenomenon, one that binds geographically distant localities together as a given standard is implemented in multiple sites around the world. By following the development of P3P as it moves across social, political, and cultural boundaries, this project will investigate how local cultures shape global standards and how technical standards are implicated in broader processes of global political-economy. In this way, a study of technical standards offers a lens through which scholars can investigate the evolution of technology and the building of sociotechnical order.