Nominet votes for Argentinian solution to net ownership.   more »

Kieren McCarthy conitunes his excellent series of articles on the WSIS process   more »

Rob has transmitted his concern and serious reservations about the last minute process that has been developed to the Canadian govt officials involved in the WSIS.   more »

For the first time in its history, the Internet is running a real risk of fracturing into multiple and perhaps even incompatible networks. That's why the next few weeks before the final meeting in Tunisia will be crucial.   more »

Civil society believes that the Internet's value is created by the participation and cooperation of people all over the world. The Internet is global, not national. Therefore, "No single Government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international Internet governance." The WGIG report came to a consensus on that position. It is expressed in paragraph 48 of the WGIG Report. Civil society expresses its strong support for that conclusion.   more »

All the ITU or any international body need do in order to fork the Internet is to do it. There is no army, and no weapon, which can prevent the creation of new DNS regimes, especially if national governments choose to force ISPs to point to them.    more »

NGOs are considering organising a counter summit parallel to the official UN conference.   more »

The motion
introduced by China was adopted by the Preparatory Committee by a recorded roll-call vote of 52
to 35, with 35 abstentions.   more »

Who should govern the net - the US commerce department or a global, accountable public body? After the WSIS Geneva summit split, read Bill Thompson's prescient argument for a "democratic republic of cyberspace"

New: Marcus J Gilroy-Ware, a proud citizen of Wikipedia, describes his passion for open source

More from our peer power debate:
Miriam Clinton on the rule of law

Internet Governance and Follow-Up after Summit still open [Smoke on the Water mix]

30 September 2005. The last preparatory conference, less than 60 days before the Tunis summit, ended tonight at 21:00 without an agreement. The open questions will have to be dealt with in the time before Tunis – and basically without civil society participation.


Internet Governance: from no text to ten proposals

The Internet Governance subcommittee A, chaired by the focused Pakistani Masood Khan, managed to come from a blank sheet of paper to agreed text on most aspects within a week. The only paragraphs still in brackets in the first four parts are related to cybercrime and cybersecurity, where an old battle between the United States and Russia is blocking progress. This will probably be resolved quickly before the summit, with reference to agreed language from the Geneva Declaration. Another smaller fight is taking place around the issue of interconnection costs, where the Bangladesh government wants negotiations on better conditions not only for least developed countries.