Working Group on Internet Governance

From Freepedia

The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) is a United Nations group set up after the failure of the 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to agree on the future of Internet governance. It is a challenge to the role of ICANN, the United States organisation which currently oversees a large portion of Internet administration but actually only has a narrow technical remit. It usually takes only an advisory role, but many countries, particularly developing nations, are unhappy at the prospect of the U.S. maintaining control of the future of the Internet and have formed the WGIG as a more worldwide approach at management. A few weeks before the release of the WGIG proposals the U.S. reiterated its claim over ICANN and stated that it wished to "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file" [1].

1 View of Internet governance
2 Proposals
3 Timeline
4 Criticism
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

View of Internet governance

The group sees the future development of the Internet in four separate sections:

Infrastructure (mainly the Domain Name System and IP addresses)
Internet issues such as security, safety and privacy (including spam and cybercrime)
Intellectual property and international trade (including copyrights)
Expansion (particularly developing countries)

Proposals

Their four proposals for the governance of policy issues outside of ICANNs remit were finalised during their fourth meeting, and were presented to stakeholders on 18 July 2005 in preparation for the November 2005 meeting in Tunis, Tunisia. These proposals mainly focus on the introduction of an open debating forum to give greater control to the governments of countries around the world.

The proposeds models are:

Create the Global Internet Council (GIC) consisting of governments and involved stakeholders to take over 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

Date	Event
December 2003	WSIS meeting in Geneva
21 September 2004	WGIG formed
23 November 2004 – 25 November 2004	First meeting
14 February 2005 – 18 February 2005	Second meeting
18 April 2005 – 20 April 2005	Third meeting
14 June 2005 – 17 June 2005	Fourth meeting – finalisation of the four proposals
November 2005	WSIS meeting in Tunis – proposals to be presented

Criticism

Some critics have hinted that the plan is based on the idea that the involved countries require a more "equal" say in Internet governance, seeking a chance to conduct censorship or monitor their citizens more effectively (EFF on Internet Governance).

The U.S. has instructed its ambassador to the U.N. to oppose any change in the way the Internet is operated, preferring to keep the Internet in the domain of business and private persons. 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 might be suspectible to group-think and bad decisions will effectively coordinate the Internet technologically.

Critics want to avoid a politicisation of the Internet, and some see the effort of the WGIG in launching a set of alien terms and ideas as dangerous. Some feel that the alternatives are better: a split-up of the Internet or a defense of the status quo. America is a democracy and has traditionally seen its role as a defender of citizens' rights worldwide, which is one reason it wants to keep the Internet free for private individuals rather than the object of influence used by governments. The plans set out by the WGIG may be seen as too government-oriented.