UN Online freedom resolution passes despite opposition from Russia, China et al

The United Nations officially condemned the practice of countries shutting down access to the internet at a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday. A resolution [PDF] entitled The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet effectively extends human rights held offline to the internet. It was passed by consensus, but …

Occupy NetMundial – Internet Social Forum to Torpedo NETmundial Initiative and Disrupt Davos Discussions

A new initiative is angling to torpedo the NetMundial Initiative. Philip Corwin brings into light the issues of the new initiative Internet Social Forum, you can read about it here Now, in the same week that global political and business leaders as well as prominent glitterati are meeting at the Davos event, a collection of …

Double hammer blow to ICANN and pals’ internet power grab bid as CGI.Br, ISOC and International Chamber of Commerce want clarifications

The controversial NetMundial Initiative (NMI) – an effort by various countries and organizations to steer the internet – may be beyond saving after a second series of rejections. This time it’s been snubbed by the business world and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) today published a damning letter [PDF] …

Staff vs Stakeholders as ICANN’s accountability comes under the radar

This weekend ICANN launched a new public comment period on enhancing its accountability and governance. However, its approach to the issue has come under fire, with questions raised over the lack of community input into the current process. In June, World Trademark Review reported on a call from the Generic Names Supporting Organisation’s (GNSO) various …

Internet nation? A Speech by Milton Mueller at the 2014 IGF in Turkey

The following is the speech delivered by IGP’s Milton Mueller at the closing ceremony of the 9th Annual Internet Governance Forum I thank our host country and the IGF Secretariat for the excellent facilities and well-organized event. I also want to shout out to the Turkish alternative informatics activists for their courage and commitment in …

The 9th Internet Governance Forum to be held in Istanbul, Turkey

The 2014 and 9th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting will be held in Istanbul, Turkey from 2 to 5 September 2014.. The overarching theme of the Istanbul meeting is: Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multistakeholder Internet Governance. This year’s meeting will build on previous IGFs and further the dialogue on Internet governance and emerging Internet issues. …

Surveillance a major concern at conclusion of UN-backed Bali IGF forum

While reaffirming the need to strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, the United Nations-backed forum on the issue, known as the IGF, concluded today in Bali, Indonesia with an acknowledgement that surveillance is the major emerging issue of the year. Over four days, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), set up to support Secretary-General Ban …

Ukrainian IGF discusses Cyrillic domains issues

The Fourth Ukrainian IGF took place on October, 3, 2013. During the course of the Forum Ukrainian and international experts discussed issues of Internet infrastructure development, network safety, international tendencies in informational community development. One of the Forum’s meetings was devoted to the issue of cyrillic top-level domains. In August, 2013,domain names registration in the …