[governance] Where are we going?

[Norbert Bollow]

Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> wrote,
 quoting Jeremy Malcolm <Jeremy at Malcolm.id.au>:

> >This is exactly the same problem that existed in Athens.  Time and 
> >time again, people would make the same points; in written 
> >submissions, at the consultations, in plenary sessions, in the 
> >follow-up process. Time and again their views would sink into the 
> >depths, never to resurface.  A number of really useful proposals 
> >simply got lost in this way.  Does anyone remember the Swiss 
> >Internet User Group's proposal for Internet Quality Labels?  No?
> 
> 
> No, not particularly.  We've heard many good ideas.  Perhaps Norbert 
> will propose a workshop? Or tell us about the idea on the list, see 
> if it gains more support. I'd suggest approaching W3C. There might 
> even be overlap (weak most likely) with some of the dynamic 
> coalitions.

Well, the proposal text is here:

http://intgovforum.org/Substantive_1st_IGF/SwissInternetUserGroup.txt

Actually the decision to propose Internet Quality Labels was made not
just by Swiss Internet User Group but by consensus in a meeting of a
significant number of leading people from a wide variety of Swiss
civil society organizations, who met at the "Internet Governance
Symposium" in Zurich on July 7, 2006.

There are two main aspects to this proposal: One is to promote
"Internet Quality Label" certification as a tool for promoting e.g.
making websites accessible to people with disabilities.  (There is
positive experience in this area in Switzerland, about which I gave a
presentation at the -unfortunately very poorly attended- W3C workshop
at the IGF in Athens, see http://atmig.org/igf06/swiss-perspective ).
I'm not directly involved in the certification work in Switzerland,
which is carried forward by design4all.ch, but the "Internet Quality
Label" proposal is endorsed by design4all.ch.

The second goal of the proposal is to create discussion of how
internet governance can be organized in an accountable and transparent
multistakeholder manner, and eventually such an internet governance
organization (which will administrate the standards for those
"Internet Quality Label" certifications and grant testing/certification
organizations the right to award Internet Quality Labels, under
appropriate conditions).

I believe that it is going to be much easier to create a new
organization in a manner which is genuinely accountable, genuinely
transparent and genuinely inclusive and considerate of all stakeholder
groups (let's never forget Parminder's recent important remarks about
how in particular the "development constituency" can easily get
effectively excluded from really having a voice in internet governance
processes) than e.g. reforming ICANN.  Therefore I propose to focus
initally on this easier task of implementing good internet governance
in an area where no internet governance organization exists yet
(administrating "Internet Quality Labels").  When that has been
successfully achieved, we can talk about whether and how it may be
feasible to really reform some of the older internet governance
organizations (or perhaps I should write "telecommunications
governance organizations", to include also ITU, regulation of the
electromagnetic spectrum, etc.)

On the question of whether I'll propose a workshop (possibly in
collaboration with W3C), that depends primarily on whether anyone will
pay for me to go to the IGF in Rio.  SIUG (Swiss Internet User Group)
unfortunately currently doesn't have enough money available to be able
to cover the travel expenses to Rio.

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                    http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG  http://SIUG.ch
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