Internet governance back in the limelight

The telcos and the internet media companies have their own commercial interests, and some of them are diametrically opposed. How are we going to address this? Shouldn't we at least establish platforms where we, as an international community, can discuss it? Surely not just governments should be involved – but, whether we like it or not, for the time being they will have an important role to play as well.

Looks like we will muddle on

On the multi-stakeholders issue, the missing pieces are the individual people and the community interests. The internet has allowed communities to form, cooperate and act, often independently of national borders. Their influence in the internet is only increasing through the democratising effect it has around the world. These communities most certainly have opinions on governance issues and they should be included in any stakeholder forum.

Over the last few months we have seen internet governance initiatives taken by the government of Brazil, the EU and various technical groupings, all indicating that, in one way or another, we need to address the internet governance issues. However, given America's almost fanatical approach to the issue it will be a real challenge to make that happen.

For as long as the world has no real clue about how to move forward and is unwilling to seriously unravel and address the issues we will simply muddle on and, while far from ideal, this is perhaps the best way forward, at least for the time being.