Internet governance
How’s this huge, influential and potentially-useful beast called the internet to be governed? Who is to call the shots? Brazil-based RITS’s strategy director Carlos Afonso takes a close look at how control of the internet is sought to be transformed, before a crucial crossroad comes up in the next few months. This 50-page paper in PDF format, commissioned by APC member Instituto del Tercer Mundo (ITeM) as part of its WSISpapers series, also provides useful historical background on...
When the world meets up at Tunisia, in coming November, during the World Summit on the Information Society, this meet signals global recognition that information and communication technologies can play a major role in social and economic development and contribute significantly towards poverty alleviation. South Africa’s civil society takes a look at the focus and objectives of the WSIS.
APC members in the Philippines, the Foundation for Media Alternatives, took the lead in a consultative workshop on the national leg of the information society summit. While welcoming the workshop, it also spoke out to voice concern that the first national summit of May 2004 had not been taken seriously by the government, with very few discussions held last year.
The Slovak Telecommunications Office has published a draft of its new general licence for operating radio devices in the public 2.4 GHz frequency band. But if the wordings of this new policy remain unchanged, it could "effectivelly put ban on thousands of devices around the country", warns the Bratislava-based CHANGENET.SK network.
As executive coordinator of the Secretariat of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), Markus Kummer prepares sessions, facilitates their work and writes up their reports after meetings. But, as he explains to Maud Hand in a quiet moment prior to PrepCom 2, Phase 2, unlike the classical secretariat tasks of any international working group, the multi-stakeholder make up of WGIG makes fo...
Internet governance brings together two largely impenetrable realms for the average WSIS delegate: the nuts and bolts of the internet – what it is, how it works- and who manages those nuts and bolts. It is too early to predict what the final impact of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) will be. But there is no doubt that it has created a much-needed space. “At a time of glo...
The Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus presented this statement during PrepCom 2 of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva. The Caucus expresses its support for the Working Group on Internet Governance’s multi stakeholder approach. "We believe that legitimate and successful Internet Governance can only be achieved if all concerned or affected groups have an opportunit...
Carlos Afonso, former chair of APC and member of the UN body charged with coming up with a definition of what ‘internet governance’ should encompass amongst other tasks has written an opinionative report on the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance, November 23-25 2004, Geneva. For the first time published in English and Spanish from the Portuguese original. T...
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process continues and two issues on which governments were unable to reach consensus during the first phase in 2003- ‘internet governance’ and ‘financing mechanisms’- are under the microscope. Last month saw the first open consultation on the ‘working group on internet governance’. APC briefs you on the discu...
Internet domains (such as .uk, .fr) are sold for a profit to any taker, even if the prospective holder does not have any legal binding with the corresponding country. Thus many ccTLDs are no longer identified with their countries on the Internet, having been sold to national or foreign companies for a profit – some are supposed to be identified with some specific sectors of activity instead o...
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