[chapter-delegates] ISOC Intervention at WSIS Prepcom 2

[David McAuley]

Dear Chapter Delegates:

Last week the second Preparatory Meeting of the Tunis Phase of the World
Summit on the Information Society took place in Geneva. ISOC was present at
the meeting and submitted its comments via the Intervention as quoted below.
I am sending it along for your information.

Best regards

David McAuley
Membership Director
Internet Society
703-326-9880, ext 104
703-963-5887 (mobile)
mcauley at isoc.org


Internet Society intervention during the WSIS Prepcom 2 in Geneva on 24 
February 2005

by Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society

The Internet Society (or ISOC as we are also known) is a global 
not-for-profit open membership organization founded by Dr. Vinton Cerf and 
Dr. Robert Kahn - the "fathers of the Internet". ISOC welcomes the 
preliminary report of the WGIG submitted to the Preparatory Committee of 
WSIS. Clearly a lot of hard work has been done by the Working Group on 
Internet Governance (WGIG). While we are pleased to see that progress has 
been made in some areas, we are concerned that an inordinate amount of 
effort has been focused on what are largely administrative areas already 
addressed quite effectively by ICANN and other Internet Organizations, at 
the expense of the many policy and capacity building areas where 
governments and International organizations quite clearly have the major 
role and primary responsibility.

Given the above, we support WGIG's decision to take a 'broad approach' to 
Internet Governance and to recognise the fact that Internet Governance 
encompasses a much wider range of topics than IP address and domain name 
administration.

Furthermore, we support WGIG's move to distinguish between technical and 
policy issues. In the technical area there are existing effective, 
inclusive, transparent, multi-stakeholder processes and mechanisms for the 
administration and operation of the Internet infrastructure. These 
processes and mechanisms gained legitimacy through their proven 
effectiveness, and the recognition by and the support of the communities 
they serve, including many governments. They grew organically, in a 
bottom-up, collaborative process over the last thirty years and hence are 
purpose-built for the Internet. The Internet community shares as a goal, 
and has always had a goal of maximizing participation by all stakeholders 
in all processes. This is not something the Internet community has ever 
resisted, nor have we built barriers. That is not to say that barriers do 
not exist, they do, but they are largely ones of access or affordability, 
areas where governments play a central role. The Internet Society cautions 
against overlaying yesterday's telecommunications models on tomorrow's 
medium, but rather recommends that we all unite and support the evolution 
of these purpose-built Internet organizations and processes.

ISOC and the Internet community have for the last several decades had a 
significant focus on education, on all matters related to developing a 
sustainable Internet capability in developing countries. This included 
significant outreach and capacity building efforts. But, we need to do 
more. We're small organizations, particularly when compared to virtually 
any nation's government. We have limited resources, mainly from private 
sources, and given the need to do much more, we applaud the Summit's 
efforts to date and further call upon WSIS to make capacity building a 
clear and unequivocal priority.

The flexible, decentralized architecture of the Internet has allowed it to 
be a platform for innovation and incredible economic growth. The Internet 
enables ISPs, technology companies, online businesses, governments, and 
individuals to adapt it to meet localized needs thereby accelerating 
economic growth which is a key enabler of human, social and infrastructure 
development and growth. Open standards have enabled thousands of unexpected 
new applications to be developed, and the distributed nature of the 
Internet, as well as the lack of, and by definition slower, centralized 
control is another reason why the Internet has experienced such explosive 
growth over the last several decades. Decentralized, lightweight governance 
has proven itself to be a feature not a bug.

While many processes and organizations have grown organically in support of 
the development of the Internet, the community has not seen the need to 
develop many new frameworks or processes for handling issues concerning the 
usage of the Internet. This is because many of these issues are best dealt 
with through existing national legislation and improved international 
legislation and coordination. The Internet is in some ways, simply another 
medium. Like other areas such as the printing press, telephony, the postal 
service etc, it may be subject to inappropriate use. And as is the case for 
these other areas, such usage issues are most appropriately tackled through 
national laws and regulations such as those that apply in general to crime, 
fraud, privacy, and intellectual property. There was for example, no call 
for a "mobile telephony crime organization" or a new oversight 
"coordination body" to fight fax spam. Most, if not all, of the needed 
organizations already exist and we support governments, policy makers and 
the United Nations in their continuing efforts to improve cooperation in 
this area. There is still much to be done here.

Although there is no consensus on a definition of Internet Governance, we 
are pleased to note that the WGIG report observes that "the terms 
'governance' and 'govern' mean more than government activities". However, 
there does seem to be consensus about the importance of coordination. The 
multiple facets of the Internet require different types of coordination, 
each calling for specific competences and sensitivities to balance the 
needs of the Internet user community globally and locally. It is worth 
noting that many of the existing processes have proved to be flexible and 
responsive to the needs expressed by ever more local Internet communities. 
The evolution of these processes has been made possible by the cooperation 
of those organizations that are responsible for them. For example the 
recent creation of regional Internet Registries (RIRs) in Latin America and 
Africa was supported fully by the existing RIRs and has enabled the 
Internet communities in both regions to develop and implement policies 
based on needs specific to those regions.

Before attempting the creation of new and untested processes, we encourage 
WGIG and WSIS to define how existing processes could be improved, how 
participation can be increased, particularly for developing countries, and 
how the Internet community can help implement improvements. Bearing in mind 
the fact that the Internet has grown into a de-centralised and distributed 
structure, any future processes will need to continue to work with that 
structure. Here the concepts of coordination and international cooperation 
have clearly proved to be the most appropriate, as well as successful, as 
they have facilitated the Internet's rapid, stable development and 
unprecedented deployment.

In closing, we encourage WGIG and WSIS to think carefully about governing 
the uses of the Internet rather than the Internet itself.

The Internet Society is ready to help in any way it can, by drawing on a 
vast network of Internet expertise, to continue supporting the Internet 
coordination processes that have stood the Internet so well, so that the 
benefits it brings really can reach all the world.

For further materials, briefings, etc. see ISOC's website at: 
http://www.isoc.org.


  


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