By Emily Taylor, Nominet

Without doubt the Internet is an integral part of our everyday lives. Consequently the issue of how the Internet is governed is of growing interest to a much wider cross-section of society.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established by the United Nations at their World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005. Although it has no powers to make binding decisions, the IGF is a multi-stakeholder forum that debates a range of issues relating to Internet Governance.

The IGF represents a huge procedural step forward because as recently as 2003 it would have been unthinkable to some that any major decisions on Internet Governance would be debated by anyone other than governments themselves. It seems logical that something so distributed and open as the Internet would benefit from a multi-stakeholder approach, and it is encouraging to see that this is beginning to happen.

Global gathering

The first annual meeting of the IGF was held in Athens from 30 October to 2 November 2006. It attracted a high level of interest with over 1500 people attending. Representatives from the international community, business, government, and civil society all took part in the global gathering.

The discussion focused on the following four specific areas:-

• Openness, how to ensure that freedom of expression and the free flow of information, ideas and knowledge continue to be at the heart of the Internet;
• Security, looking in particular at how to build (or increase) trust in the Internet by tackling online crime and spam, as well as examining the balance between security and privacy;
• Diversity, examining what can be done to promote a multilingual Internet;
• Access, how to increase the number of people worldwide who have online access.

Multi-stakeholder input

With the broad collection of representatives a key theme of the IGF was multi-stakeholder input. The UK boasts a number of success stories that highlight the benefits of the multi-stakeholder approach to governance. A specific example is the work of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) who, by working closely with Government and the Internet industry has significantly reduced the number of images of child abuse held on UK servers in the past ten years. In 1996 the figure was 18%, compared with less than 1% currently.

This is one of a number of initiatives taken by ‘good citizens’ that have not required legislation to bring them into effect. The traditional barriers between regulators and the rest of the world are being blurred by organisations taking responsibility for their own actions, and for the welfare of their communities.

The IGF meeting was an excellent opportunity to increase understanding of issues from the perspectives of different stakeholders and nationalities. For instance, on the topic of access, a key issue for UK Internet users is accessibility for disabled users, whilst for many overseas representatives, particularly those from developing countries, the main issue is the costs of inter-connectivity.

Practical takeaways

In addition to the discussions there were a number of practical takeaways in terms of workshops. Nominet co-organised one on participation in Internet Governance organisations which illustrated how the Internet community can positively influence change, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ran a very practical anti-spam tool kit workshop.

Representatives from found the IGF to be a good opportunity to form ‘dynamic coalitions’ of the willing, by building common interest groups by networking and forging new relationships.

There is a further planned series of meetings of the IGF each year for the next four years and in the meantime the dynamic coalitions that were formed in Athens will continue their work. One of the major benefits is that the IGF is open to all. As Nitin Desai, chair of the UN advisory group to the IGF said at Nominet’s pre-IGF event “The IGF has no membership, it’s an open door, a town hall, all views are welcome.”

This entry was posted in January, 2007.
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