By Emily Taylor, director of legal and policy at Nominet and member of the Advisory Group for the Internet Governance Forum

On 9 October 2006 we hosted “The road to Athens”, a UK Internet governance stakeholder event at the RICS Venues Centre in London, which was instigated, organised and sponsored by Nominet.

A pre-cursor to the upcoming world Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Athens (30 October - 2 November), the forum built on our strategy of playing a leading role in the worldwide discussion of Internet Governance. This sees us working closely with organisations such as the United Nations, ICANN and worldwide domain name registry organisations as well as the IGF.

“The road to Athens” provided a platform for UK Internet community stakeholders from a range of backgrounds to consider and discuss some of the main themes of the IGF, namely, openness, security and emerging issues. Evidence and opinion from this event will be taken to the IGF in Athens.

Nitin Desai, chair of the UN advisory group to the IGF, opened the event giving his views on the topics that may be discussed at the upcoming event in Athens: the shape of the Internet in years to come, the impact of regulation, and the impact of increasing numbers of people from wide and varied backgrounds coming online.

Panel representatives from the private sector, government and civil society provided a UK perspective. These organisations included Google UK, the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), Messagelabs, Cyber Liberties UK and the London Internet Exchange (LINX) among many others.

Sarah Montague from BBC’s Today, Newsnight and HARDtalk facilitated a lively debate with a strong exchange of views.

Additionally, the event included a joint presentation from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and NCH, the children’s charity, on combating child abuse images online. This highlighted what can be achieved in real terms through multi-stakeholder cooperation.

With the success that we have seen from events such as this, we are looking forward to the IGF itself being a major success that is open to all. As Nitin Desai, explained on the day, “The IGF has no membership, it’s an open door, a town hall, all views are welcome.”

To see a web cast of this event please click here
If you would like to add your comment to the debate email igfevent@nominet.org.uk

To see the BBC’s take on the event see here

This entry was posted in October, 2006.
If you want a link to this article copy this permanent link.
You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.