The Weaponization of Governance

If you were ever curious to know more about the USB-C “mating interfaces” on the side of your computer, you could learn a lot about them in this 373-page document.

It’s not as sexy as it sounds, unfortunately.

But technical standards are vitally important. And these dry, technical governance mechanisms are important for Canada’s digital sovereignty. Chapter 2 of Foundations of Digital Sovereignty studies the weaponization of governance, with a particular focus on standards.

The only reason why we can plug USB devices into our computers, or navigate sites on the open web, or do anything else that requires multiple different organizations to make their systems work interoperably is because everyone agrees on technical standards.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) maintains more than 26,000 standards across 800+ technical committees. These cover everything from leather products to quantum technologies.

In theory, standards are consensus-driven neutral rules that allow various companies and governments to all operate seamlessly. But in reality, in matters of mating interfaces and technical standards, power dynamics often come into play.

Talk to anybody who’s deeply engaged in standards, and they will tell you that big companies and countries quietly use technical standards as a way to create serious structural advantages.

We saw this in the battle for defining 5G wireless connectivity standards.

The U.S. took an early lead in developing things like the Low-Density Parity-Check protocol for 5G data transmission, which became the default attached to multiple 5G standards. But China has also been active in asserting 5G standards as well.

In fact, China ranks first among countries with “standards essential patents” which are particularly lucrative, because they mean that valuable intellectual property is bundled into the standard, so everybody who uses that standard needs to pay a licensing fee.

But patent licensing isn’t the only way to create advantage from standards.

Right now, Google is pushing a WebMCP standard through its market domination with Chrome, turning every website on the internet into structured data for AI agents. There are obviously subtle advantages to be had in shaping these kinds of standards for the benefit of AI systems like Google’s Gemini.

Cutthroat competitive behaviour with standards was immortalized in Microsoft’s “Embrace, extend, extinguish” mantra, back in the early 2000s when the company was under fire for anti-competitive behaviour.

Microsoft would embrace existing open standards in their own products, and extend the requirements of the open standard to make it difficult for competitors to meet the requirements and to privilege their own products, with the aim to extinguish competition and dominate that product space.

The bottom line: Standards aren’t some neutral venue for consensus.

As we think about strengthening our national sovereignty, we cannot create fancy new institutions and muse about international rules if we can’t acknowledge how these systems actually function.

Canada needs to protect our own interests in the standard-setting bodies, and recognize that every other country is motivated to do likewise.