Challenges in Measuring the Internet for the Public Interest

The goal of this article is to offer framing for conversations about the role of measurement in informing public policy about the Internet. Researchers reviewed different stakeholders’ approaches to measurements and associated challenges, including the activities of US government agencies. Overall, researchers found that advances in measurement in the public interest will have to address the following challenges: objectivity of measurements and associated inferences; legitimate business interests in secrecy; respect for privacy, the role of the research community, and sustainability. There are limits to what any given community or even set of stakeholders can do to overcome barriers to Internet measurement in the public interest. There are many actors in the ecosystem—researchers and the academic context within which they sit (with their priorities for publication, funding, advancement, and tenure), service providers, governments, advocates for various objectives ranging from privacy to improved access, and funding agencies. Changing the landscape of network measurement would require adjustment in many parts of this ecosystem. In the researchers' view, the question is not whether there needs to be a measurement of the Internet in the public interest, but instead, how to achieve it sustainably and constructively.