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15.12.2005 Letter reveals US role in web power struggle Condoleezza Rice accused Europe of seeking to impose "burdensome, bureaucratic oversight" that would have damaged the internetAfter the WSIS: The time for balance WSIS poses more questions than solid agreements, in spite of the official promise to turn it into a "summit of solutions". The Tunis Summit has not been vanguardist and in many aspects Geneva commitments and declarations were reaffirmed. Being a four-year decision-making process, more results were indeed expected, although the opening up of spaces for dialogue on fundamental issues, whose results will have to be reviewed later on, should also be highlighted as positive. Internet governance and WSIS: who won? In a certain way, the world has won There is a bit of confusion in the interpretation of the results from the WSIS which had its second phase ended in Tunis in November, 2005. For some nothing changed, but the truth is that the WSIS process as a whole has led to several important gains. Actually, the entire WSIS process during these five years (the initial proposal for a summit was born in 2000) has contributed enormously to make the general public aware of relevant ICT-related concepts and actions for social inclusion and human development. Creating spaces for civil society in the WSIS In the aftermath of Tunis, a critique of the civil society participation has emerged which constructs the main value of WSIS as one of networking in a closed network of the privileged. While this critique has some merit, it is too partial a view and dismisses the real gains that have been made by civil society participation. Remove civil society from WSIS and there would be no new global policy space for considering broad public policy issues affecting the internet, including access to the internet and the digital divide. Internet governance: Everybody's business in the Information Society The issue of a more democratic and equitable management of global Internet resources was one of the central issues in the UN WSIS. WSIS: Civil society open letter to Kofi Annan Civil society open letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in response to the attacks on human rights and freedom of expression that took place in Tunisia on the eve of and during the WSIS: "We believe it is essential that lessons are learnt from what has taken place here this week and we therefore call upon you, the Secretary General of the United Nations, to launch a full investigation into the attacks on human rights and freedom of expression that we have witnessed in Tunisia both in the run-up to and during the WSIS". So what happened at WSIS? By Peng Hwa Ang As I said in my address at the recent AoIR meeting, there is just no way to predict the outcomes of political debates. And so it has been a surprise to just about everyone involved in the process that the WSIS meeting decided to set up the Internet Governance Forum but also decided to leave oversight in the hands of the USA. So what happened at the WSIS? Did the USA"win", as the US media seemed to have portrayed? I'll let you draw your own conclusions at the end of this. Intellectual Property issues kept off WSIS agenda The issue of intellectual property did not make the headlines during the concluding session of the five-year-long UN WSIS in Tunis. And some critics are concerned it was intentional. ITU Launches New Publication: The Internet of Things The internet as we know it is set to transform radically, according to a new ITU Internet Report entitled The Internet of Things, specially prepared to coincide with the WSIS in Tunis. From an academic network for the chosen few created in the late 1960s, the internet is now a mass-market, consumer-oriented network being accessed by over 900 million people worldwide, through personal computers, mobile phones and other wireless devices. But this is only the beginning. According to ITU's report, we are standing on the brink of a new ubiquitous computing and communication era, one that will radically transform the Internet, and with it, our corporate, community, and personal spheres. The new ITU report looks at key enabling technologies for ubiquity (e.g. RFID, sensors and sensor networks, telematics, robotics, nanotechnology) and how they might impact the future human and technological landscape. War of words with Tunis heats up Tunisia has denounced the "unfriendly attitude" of Switzerland after Bern received four Tunisian human rights militants at the foreign ministry on Thursday. WSIS is over, but the debate has just begun The information society is broader than the agenda of the WSIS could ever have hoped to cover. And the resulting non-binding Tunis Declaration has produced little in concrete terms for developing countries. Everyone knew this before the Tunis phase of WSIS even started. So why did some 20,000 delegates bother to turn up? At the end of the day, was it worth it? UN ICT TASK FORCE EVENTS IN TUNIS HELP TO FURTHER SUMMIT AGENDA The UN Information and Communication Technology Task Force organized nine parallel events at the Tunis phase of the WSIS. These events helped to further the agenda of the Summit "with an eye on the road after Tunis", said the Task Force's Executive Coordinator, Sarbuland Khan. "The World Summit has provided a highly visible forum for advancing the critical role of ICT in achieving development goals, and for putting ICT for development issues on the 'radar screens' of policy-makers", Mr. Khan said. "What is most important now is to ensure that the energy generated does not dissipate, that the issues do not recede from the policy agenda, and that the vision and action plan formulated by the Summit do not go unfulfilled." 06.12.2005 Who Controls the Internet?
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