The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

multistakeholder

Working group A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collab ...

initiated after the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) first phase Summit in Geneva failed to agree on the future of

Internet governance Internet governance is the effort by governments, the private sector, civil society, and technical actors to develop and apply shared principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. This ...

. The first phase of World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) agreed to continue the dialogue on Internet Governance in the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan adopted on 12 December 2003, to prepare for a decision at the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis during November 2005. In this regard, the first phase of the Summit requested the United Nations Secretary-General to establish a Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). The main activity of the WGIG was "to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

by 2005." The WGIG was asked to present the result of its work in a report "for consideration and appropriate action for the second phase of the WSIS in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

2005." It was asked, inter alia, to deal with the following issues: * Develop a working definition of Internet Governance; * Identify the

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

issues that are relevant to Internet Governance; * Develop a common understanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of governments, existing international organizations and other forums as well as the private sector and

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

and stated that it wished to "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file".

Membership

The chair of WGIG was Nitin Desai, and the executive coordinator was Markus Kummer. The 40 official members are listed in the final report; in addition, there were many people attending informally to contribute their views.

View of Internet governance

The report of the WGIG divided Internet Governance into four sections: *

Infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...

(mainly the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information ...

and

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

es) *Internet issues such as security, safety and privacy (including

spam Spam most often refers to: * Spam (food), a consumer brand product of canned processed pork of the Hormel Foods Corporation * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ...

and

cybercrime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or Computer network, networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cyberc ...

) *Intellectual property and international trade (including

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

s) *Development issues (particularly developing countries)

Proposals

Four options for the management of Internet-related public policy issues were proposed in the Report of the WGIG, finalised during their fourth meeting, and presented to stakeholders on 18 July 2005 in preparation for the November 2005 meeting in Tunis,

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

. These proposals all include the introduction of an open multi-stakeholder based Internet governance forum to give greater influence to stakeholders around the world, including civil society, the private sector, and governments. Each model included different strategies for the oversight role, currently held by the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econ ...

. The proposed models were: #Create the Global Internet Council (GIC) consisting of governments and involved stakeholders to assume the U.S. oversight role of ICANN. #Ensure that ICANNs Governmental Advisory Committee is an official forum for debate, strengthening its position by allowing for the support of various governments. #Remove the U.S. oversight of ICANN and restrict it to the narrow technical role, forming the International Internet Council (IIC) to manage most aspects of the Internet administration. #Create three new bodies: #*The Global Internet Policy Council (GIPC) to manage "internet-related public policy issues" #*The World Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (WICANN) to take over from ICANN #*The Global Internet Governance Forum (GIGF), a central debating forum for governments.

Timeline

Analysis

Some critics have hinted that the idea that the world's countries require a more "equal" say in Internet governance, masks the desire by some governments to conduct

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

or monitor their citizens more effectively. Fears that increased "governance" will bring with it more regulation and fees have been expressed. IT experts have expressed doubts that a U.N. body that does not necessarily know enough about the Internet will effectively coordinate the Internet technologically. The director of ICANN has expressed concerns that some of the changes proposed represent a government-focused "top-down" philosophy, and that this is incompatible with the current "bottom-up" structure of the Internet mandated by US policy. The U.S Government's negotiating position in Tunis Prepcom 3 was flexible on the principle of global involvement, very strong on the principle of multistakeholder participation, but inflexible on the need for US control to remain for the foreseeable future in order to ensure the "security and stability of the Internet". This generally showed itself in U.S. support for proposals allowing other governments to have a larger role in the management of their ccTLDs, but no change to the management or control of the root zone file. The majority of stakeholders want to avoid a politicisation of the Internet, and some consider the effort of the WGIG as launching a set of alien and dangerous terms and ideas. Others believe that it has been an important forum for discussion of the often contentious issue of Internet governance, as well as a model for multi-stakeholder cooperation. Some feel that either of the alternatives is better: a division of the Internet or a defense of the status quo. The United States has traditionally considered its function as a defender of citizens' rights worldwide, which is one reason it wants to keep the Internet free for private individuals rather than overly regulated by governments or international organisations. Some of the options presented in the WGIG Report may be seen by some as too government-oriented, while one option reflects the status quo, and may be seen as being too US-centric. The final agreements reached in Tunis, the Tunis Agenda and the Tunis Commitment,Tunis Commitment
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), United Nations, WSIS-05/TUNIS/DOC/7-E, 18 November 2005 include the formation of the Internet Governance Forum. No agreement was reached on the oversight function.

References

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BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, 18 July 2005
Whose net is it anyway?
, BBC News, 19 August 2005 Internet governance organizations