Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Internet Regulation and the ITU: Civil Society Must Be Heard

"Internet Regulation and the ITU: Civil Society Must Be Heard." Global Voices Online, May 22, 2012.

From the article: "Since its infancy, the Internet has benefited from a lightweight and decentralized approach to governance—a combination of targeted government regulation, technical coordination by companies, and a number of formal and informal multistakeholder organizations to help guide the Internet’s development, such as the IETF, W3C, and the IGF, just to name a few.

Typically, these multistakeholder organizations include technologists, academic experts, and civil society representatives, as well as governments and corporate voices. … But this framework is not set in stone. … A diverse group of civil society organizations and academics in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, the EU, India, Kenya, Pakistan, the US and beyond have come together to request, in the form of an open letter, more transparency from the ITU and its Member States as it considers proposals that could give it power to regulate the Internet. … The letter states:

“The continued success of the information society depends on the full, equal, and meaningful participation of civil society stakeholders (along side the private sector, the academic and technical community, and governments)…such participation depends on transparency and openness of process at every stage of substantive and procedural dialogue.” "Read more

See also
Wong, Cynthia. "ITU Discussions Must Be Opened." Center for Democracy and Technology, May 17, 2012.