World Economic Forum’s 2014 Internet Governance Report
This August, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and in conjunction with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the leading organization responsible for maintaining the internet’s stability, hosted the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, also known as the NETmundial Initiative. This conference brought together hundreds of government representatives, private sector members, civil society leaders, and academic and technology experts, as well as thousands of viewers via social media, to discuss the framework for carrying out global internet governance, in accordance with the NETmundial Principles established earlier this April.
The purpose of the NETmundial Initiative, according to the WEF briefing, is to “facilitate a distributed environment of global cooperation among stakeholders through innovate and legitimate mechanisms to tackle current and future internet issues; inform and equip capacity development initiatives to ensure global participation in internet cooperation, especially from under-represented regions; and work to build trust in the internet and its governance ecosystem.”
While some international organizations in the past, most notably the United Nations, have promoted multistakeholder symposia to establish an organizational structure for managing internet governance, NETmundial is the first conference to define a set of globally agreed upon internet governance principles. The Initiative is also the first of its kind to determine actions towards implementing a global internet governance system, following the Roadmap for the Future Evolution of Internet Governance established alongside the NETmundial Principles.
Following these guidelines, which were drafted with the input of thousands of stakeholders, the Initiative will begin setting forth global internet governance on the ground over the next six months by facilitating discussions in specific countries and regions. These dialogues are meant to address internet governance issues and potential solutions within a region and to build the capacity of developing countries to effectively administer internet governance, with the ultimate goal “to support the evolution of a more open, participatory, stable, and effective distributed governance ecosystem”.
Of importance is the provision that stakeholders are merely encouraged, not required, to consider the outcomes of NETmundial conferences. There was a broad consensus that stakeholders did not want a large, regulatory institution overseeing global internet governance. However, China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have expressed their interest in the past to have global internet governance discussions within the jurisdiction of the U.N. Countries such as the U.S., Australia, and several in the European Union have been opposed to doing so on the principle that global internet governance should include all stakeholders while the U.N. only represents governments.
Establishing a model of global internet governance will impact the welfare of billions of people, thousands of industries, and almost every government. By the end of 2014, nearly three billion people, roughly 40 percent of the global population, will have internet access. The internet has become essential to integrating countries into the global economy by facilitating international trade, providing instant communication of information across countries and time zones, and creating opportunities for entrepreneurial growth. Establishing global internet governance policies is especially significant for developing nations, which currently comprise two-thirds of the world’s internet users and over 80 percent of the world population, to capture growth.
Despite the collective understanding to have a system of internet governance in place, NETmundial did not affirm overwhelming support for preserving net neutrality. Net neutrality is the general idea that all content sent and received on the internet is treated equally, regardless of source or owner. If this current standard is compromised, several of the principles and objectives of the NETmundial Initiative would no longer be plausible.
The abolishment of net neutrality would threaten several NETmundial Principles that are particularly essential to the advancement of lesser-developed countries. Several human rights would be violated, such as the right to full access of online resources and the freedom of and access to information crucial to development. Policies against net neutrality, particularly those allowing Internet Service Providers to institute a payment-based tiered system of content delivery, would increase barriers to internet markets for entrepreneurs, thus reducing innovation and creativity. Breaching net neutrality also would obstruct the openness of the internet, hindering the ability of people living in lesser developed countries to participate in government and development processes.
The initial NETmundial conference was originally organized in response to the Snowden revelations exposing the U.S. for conducting unauthorized global surveillance and data collection over the internet. Ironically, the Initiative has experienced backlash for its lack of specificity in its privacy provision: “[T]he same rights that people have off-line must also be protected online, including the right to privacy, avoiding arbitrary or unlawful collection of personal data and surveillance and the right to the protection of the law against such interference.”
Stakeholders have expressed online that this clause “provides far too weak protection for privacy” as the inclusion of the term ‘arbitrary’ may provide governments with enough clout to conduct mass surveillance projects. Stakeholders have also brought to attention the difference between the preservation of privacy, which protects private space, and data protection, which protects personal data, the latter of which is not mentioned in NETmundial Principles.
The NETmundial Initiative is far from ideal, but it is the first conference of its kind to consider the input of thousands of people from over 100 countries, to receive overwhelming global support, and to establish and take steps towards implementing a system of global internet governance on the ground. Multistakeholder groups and governments will reconvene to evaluate the progress of the NETmundial Initiative at the Annual Meeting of the WEF in January 2015.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2014 print edition.
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NETmundial: Steps Towards Global Internet Governance
November 28, 2014
World Economic Forum’s 2014 Internet Governance Report
This August, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and in conjunction with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the leading organization responsible for maintaining the internet’s stability, hosted the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, also known as the NETmundial Initiative. This conference brought together hundreds of government representatives, private sector members, civil society leaders, and academic and technology experts, as well as thousands of viewers via social media, to discuss the framework for carrying out global internet governance, in accordance with the NETmundial Principles established earlier this April.
The purpose of the NETmundial Initiative, according to the WEF briefing, is to “facilitate a distributed environment of global cooperation among stakeholders through innovate and legitimate mechanisms to tackle current and future internet issues; inform and equip capacity development initiatives to ensure global participation in internet cooperation, especially from under-represented regions; and work to build trust in the internet and its governance ecosystem.”
While some international organizations in the past, most notably the United Nations, have promoted multistakeholder symposia to establish an organizational structure for managing internet governance, NETmundial is the first conference to define a set of globally agreed upon internet governance principles. The Initiative is also the first of its kind to determine actions towards implementing a global internet governance system, following the Roadmap for the Future Evolution of Internet Governance established alongside the NETmundial Principles.
Following these guidelines, which were drafted with the input of thousands of stakeholders, the Initiative will begin setting forth global internet governance on the ground over the next six months by facilitating discussions in specific countries and regions. These dialogues are meant to address internet governance issues and potential solutions within a region and to build the capacity of developing countries to effectively administer internet governance, with the ultimate goal “to support the evolution of a more open, participatory, stable, and effective distributed governance ecosystem”.
Of importance is the provision that stakeholders are merely encouraged, not required, to consider the outcomes of NETmundial conferences. There was a broad consensus that stakeholders did not want a large, regulatory institution overseeing global internet governance. However, China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have expressed their interest in the past to have global internet governance discussions within the jurisdiction of the U.N. Countries such as the U.S., Australia, and several in the European Union have been opposed to doing so on the principle that global internet governance should include all stakeholders while the U.N. only represents governments.
Establishing a model of global internet governance will impact the welfare of billions of people, thousands of industries, and almost every government. By the end of 2014, nearly three billion people, roughly 40 percent of the global population, will have internet access. The internet has become essential to integrating countries into the global economy by facilitating international trade, providing instant communication of information across countries and time zones, and creating opportunities for entrepreneurial growth. Establishing global internet governance policies is especially significant for developing nations, which currently comprise two-thirds of the world’s internet users and over 80 percent of the world population, to capture growth.
Despite the collective understanding to have a system of internet governance in place, NETmundial did not affirm overwhelming support for preserving net neutrality. Net neutrality is the general idea that all content sent and received on the internet is treated equally, regardless of source or owner. If this current standard is compromised, several of the principles and objectives of the NETmundial Initiative would no longer be plausible.
The abolishment of net neutrality would threaten several NETmundial Principles that are particularly essential to the advancement of lesser-developed countries. Several human rights would be violated, such as the right to full access of online resources and the freedom of and access to information crucial to development. Policies against net neutrality, particularly those allowing Internet Service Providers to institute a payment-based tiered system of content delivery, would increase barriers to internet markets for entrepreneurs, thus reducing innovation and creativity. Breaching net neutrality also would obstruct the openness of the internet, hindering the ability of people living in lesser developed countries to participate in government and development processes.
The initial NETmundial conference was originally organized in response to the Snowden revelations exposing the U.S. for conducting unauthorized global surveillance and data collection over the internet. Ironically, the Initiative has experienced backlash for its lack of specificity in its privacy provision: “[T]he same rights that people have off-line must also be protected online, including the right to privacy, avoiding arbitrary or unlawful collection of personal data and surveillance and the right to the protection of the law against such interference.”
Stakeholders have expressed online that this clause “provides far too weak protection for privacy” as the inclusion of the term ‘arbitrary’ may provide governments with enough clout to conduct mass surveillance projects. Stakeholders have also brought to attention the difference between the preservation of privacy, which protects private space, and data protection, which protects personal data, the latter of which is not mentioned in NETmundial Principles.
The NETmundial Initiative is far from ideal, but it is the first conference of its kind to consider the input of thousands of people from over 100 countries, to receive overwhelming global support, and to establish and take steps towards implementing a system of global internet governance on the ground. Multistakeholder groups and governments will reconvene to evaluate the progress of the NETmundial Initiative at the Annual Meeting of the WEF in January 2015.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2014 print edition.
