NETmundial Comments

This is a good opportunity to ensure equal and transparent participation. I hope it brings out positive outcome for the future of effective internet governance.

It would be good to mention a plan B as long as the multi-stakeholder ideal world is not yet a reality. E.g. by inserting a paragraph before the first subheader like:

“While aiming for a wide international co-operation in the implementation of the Internet Governance Principles they also should be seen as a challange for each and everyone to follow these principles and to do whatever is already now possible on individual, national and international level.”

Any road map must come back to roots: IANA/Postel choose ISO codes for the countries and they could have chosen other denomination method. What would be the position of the governments if, by example, using my own country as a model, the domain “.PE” had been chosen not to be that but, instead, it could have been named “.PS” (for “Peru South-America”) or any other name: .P9, .INKA, and similars. Many of the position of some representatives of the governments come from the wrong believing that the denomination chosen to help the internet users located in some territory (like my country, Peru) belongs, as a property, or give some right, to the government over that denomination. That is a complete misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about the origin and reasons why the ISO denominations were chosen. The idea was to help the internet users located in a territory and not not empower or give any property right to any government. Then we will see governments blocking Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as they are doing right now… but we would recover one of the false flags that are shown to demonstrate a false right to deny information to today’s global citizens.

After the word “full involvement” add a new phrase “of States and, where applicable, other interested parties”.

The roadmap correctly understands that the journey is one of “…continuously improving the existing Internet governance framework.” The UDHR lessons learned suggest that policy and implementation will not, should not, and cannot be carried out within a single global policy structure. The core principles set the standards, but the legislative and judicial aspects of rights are handled elsewhere, by policy and practice at various levels of governance. For the UDHR that goes from the global (e.g., International Court of Justice, the Hague) down to the national (e.g., Brazil’s Internet Bill of Rights, and the European Union’s data retention laws) and local. The UDHR spawned multiple civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights covenants; some embedded in international treaties; and used by governments and multiple stakeholders to advance and protect human rights. The principles of Internet governance, supporting Internet citizen’s rights, will involve a similar layered process around policy and implementation. That will require an ongoing learning process within a dialogue between stakeholders in various global, national and local fora, whereby Internet denizens become Internet citizens, come to common understanding of issues (on which they may disagree) and be actively engaged in driving policy and implementation within various levels of governance. There is a tremendous need for broader and deeper stakeholder awareness and engagement here. Ask your Internet stakeholder neighbors what they think of the following sentence: “Internet governance calls for a multistakeholder process and new forms of sovereignty”. Count the red warning flags that go up.

Change “proposed roadmap” to “proposal”. Also, “…continuously improving the Internet governance framework ensuring the full involvement of all stakeholders, in their respective roles, and of addressing the many cross-cutting international public policy issues that require attention and are not addressed by the current mechanisms.”

There are two key words used in this draft document that are mutually exclusive but not acknowledged as such – “universal” and “distributed.” Of the two words, the greatest of these is “distributed.”

Universal is mechanistic and comes from the world of management control, where systems are closed and rules are imposed on them from outside. It reflects a conventional belief that the future can and should be rendered more predictable. Distributed describes a functional principle of complex adaptive systems, i.e. the world of ecosystems, where systems are open and rules emerge from internal relationships. The future of such systems cannot be known from their initial conditions. These two words represent structural principles of governance that are incompatible. I have always believed that the existence of the Internet was a symptom of the distributed systems worldview in action.

To effectively increase the resilience of the Internet Governance Ecosystem, it is not enough to reference open systems. The processes of rules formation and future anticipation should be trending towards that word distributed and its internal relational implications. For example, if we defined the global in distributed terms as a “federation of locals,” rather than as a universalizing principle, we insure that what we commit to is a process where the rules structuring relational interdependencies evolve within from common practice.

The capacity of individuals to make choices, and to thereby gain the freedom that results from commitment, is fundamental to the formation of community and to the interdependent trust that the existence of community implies. I remain committed to community networking. In the framework of exploring what happens to community when we are all online, I see that local issues of adapting the uses of the Internet for community development actually represent issues of governance. Local governance and Internet Governance are now entangled. I see that community is a critical structural element of the changing “distributed” nature of the societies that are emerging. In a recent thread on IGC, Anriette Esterhuysen (April 10/14) noted the importance “for us to look at whether our views are reflected in the draft outcome docs.” I’m not finding the view that the global has become a federation of locals reflected in the document.

Suggest addition of the words “in their respective roles and responsibilities” after the words “…participation of all stakeholders”. This would ensure the language is in consonance with the Tunis Agenda.

In our view, para 2 should read as follows:

“The Internet governance framework is a distributed and coordinated ecosystem involving various organizations and fora. It must be inclusive, transparent and accountable, and its structures and operations must follow an approach that enables the participation of all stakeholders, in their respective roles and responsibilities, in order to address the interests of all those who benefit from the Internet.”

The rationale for this is:
* Suggest addition of the words “in their respective roles and responsibilities” after the words “…participation of all stakeholders”.
* This would ensure the language is in consonance with the Tunis Agenda.

New edition: The Internet governance framework is a distributed and coordinated ecosystem involving various organizations and fora. It must be inclusive, transparent and accountable, and its structures and operations must follow an approach that enables the participation of all stakeholders in order to address the interests of all those who benefit from the Internet not violating human rights

We suggest amending the text to read “…participation of all relevant stakeholders…”

The Multistakeholder Internet Governance model has to evolve into a rigorous and systematic discipline borrowing from the best available models of public participation in technology use. In particular, the Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) model that has inspired several similar developments in different disciplines including Governance, provides a set of interlocking concepts that emphasize deep & direct stakeholder participation in governance; public strategy creation; white-box reporting, monitoring & dispute resolution; and all the requisite technological tools (that are created with stakeholder participation).

Such a model of “Open Source Internet Governance” would be ideally suited for the requirements at hand.

The term “safeguard” is more appropriate that “address”..HenceThe Internet governance framework is a distributed and coordinated ecosystem involving various organizations and fora. It must be inclusive, transparent and accountable, and its structures and operations must follow an approach that enables the participation of all stakeholders in order to safeguard the interests of all those who benefit from the Internet.

Perhaps it is possible to make it clearer what is this “model” about? Is it really a “model”? Does it make sense to think of a “model” for multistakeholder contribution to Internet governance? One cannot identify any “model” just by reading the final text of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.

(This comment is linked to paragraph 3 because it is the first passage where the necessity to strengthen, improve and evolve the “multi-stakeholder model” is mentioned; but the comment applies to all passages in the document where similar statements are made)

On 16.4.2014, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and member of the High-Level Multi-stakeholder Committee (HLMC) of NETmundial, sent an open letter to the members of the HLMC, to the Chair of the Meeting and to the two co-chairs of the Executive Multi-Stakeholder Committee. with a number of comments and recommendations. The full text of the letter is available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/netmundial-lets-get-work .

Relevant passage of the letter:

“The draft outcome document refers several times to the need to further improve and strengthen the multi-stakeholder model, to enable the full and balanced participation of all stakeholders from around the globe, to have clear and transparent processes and procedures (including mechanisms for checks and balances and for review). I completely agree – in fact, I have said so for a long time.

The keywords here are inclusiveness and openness, which must both be real and meaningful, not just theoretical.

NETmundial should be the moment to properly connect the debates on Internet governance with the discussions and concrete activities on citizens’ engagement and participatory democracy. Europe has been quite active in this field, ranging from EU-funded projects in the ICT field, such as DEMO-NET, Cross Over and D-CENT; to legal innovations such as the European Citizens Initiative; to national initiatives such as the use of Liquid Democracy in the Germany and the People’s Assembly Rahvakogu in Estonia, to name just a few. Brazil, with the inclusive and participatory conception and discussions on the “Marco Civil”, is also an inspiration for all of us. And it is purely for reasons of space that I cannot mention all the efforts by many organisations and individuals across the world.

In its Communication on Internet Policy and Governance of 12 February 2014, the European Commission suggested that the further development of multistakeholder guidelines and the sharing of best practices would be a good manner to move forward. Accordingly, I suggest that the outcomes of NETmundial should include:

- a clear commitment to the bottom-up and cooperative development of a “concept paper” to be discussed at the 9th Internet Governance Forum (Istanbul, Turkey, 2-5 September 2014);
- this concept paper should identify initial recommendations on how the above mentioned engagement and participatory tools and initiatives could be used in Internet governance debates; it should also propose an initial outline of principles-based guidelines to safeguard accountability, transparency, inclusiveness and independence for multi-stakeholder processes;
- the discussions in Istanbul and all other appropriate fora should lead, by the beginning of 2015, to a proposal for two “case studies”, to examine how we could turn the high-level principles into concrete, operational practices of existing Internet governance organisations and processes;
- further discussions and practical experimentation on these cases studies could then result in a concrete reference paper to be presented and discussed at the 10th Internet Governance Forum, towards the end of 2015; and of course, to be further refined as need be.”

“… developing and least developed countries.” may be changed to

“… developing countries.” by dropping “least developed”.

or we may consider to change “developing” to “emerging” since “developing” tends to imply economical development.

For this endeavour to be truly multi-stakeholder, mechanisms are essential to ensure çivil society participation. (See also paragraph 6, below) Turkey, a co-host country, for instance, will be represented in NETmundial only by the government which has a deplorable record with regard to internet censorship and restricting freedom of speech. Neither funding is available for çivil society and academia, nor a mechanism to enforce multi-stakeholder participation.

The title should read “Issues that deserve attention of all stakeholders in the future evolution of Internet Governance procedures”

The title should read “Issues that deserve attention of all stakeholders in the future evolution of Internet Governance procedures”

The phrase “of all stakeholders” is very overused in this entire document. Why not just say “Issues that deserve attention in the future evolution of Internet governance.”

“…. interested parties” may be to “… stakeholders” to avoid confusion on difference between “interested parties” and “stakeholders”.

The language “recognizing the different roles played by different stakeholders in different issues” is problematic. This appears to be the same as “in their respective roles and responsibilities” language plucked from the Tunis Agenda and plunked into the first “Internet Governance Process Principle.” For the reasons I and others have stated in comments to that paragraph, this language should either be removed or its meaning clarified to distance it from the Tunis Agenda concept mentioned above.

The suggested edits to paragraph 6 are to clarify what is meant by “full participation” and the importance of relevant expertise and experience of all stakeholders as they engage in various fora. Suggested edits:

“Internet governance decisions are sometimes taken without the meaningful participation of all stakeholders. It is important that multistakeholder decision-making and policy formulation are improved in order to ensure the meaningful and accountable participation of all interested parties, taking into account the expertise and competencies of stakeholders in addressing various issues.”

- The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)

The first sentence should be rephrased: “Internet governance decisions should be taken with the meaningful participation of all stakeholders” to frame it more clearly. The rest should remain as is.

.. It is important that multistakeholder decision-making and policy formulation are improved in order to “encourage” and enhance the full participation of all interested parties, recognizing the different roles played by different stakeholders in different issues.

good point

No one knows what “enhanced cooperation” means. How can it be implemented?

The UK Government believes that enhanced co-operation is already taking place and therefore proposes amending the text as follows:
“Enhanced cooperation to address international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet must continue to be implemented on a priority and consensual basis. It is important that all stakeholders commit to advancing this discussion in a multistakeholder fashion.”

Enhanced cooperation to address international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet must be implemented according to the Tunis Agenda, “recognizing the need for enhanced cooperation, to enable governments on an equal footing”.
Explanation: The mandate of WSIS regarding Enhanced Cooperation that contained in the Tunis Agenda is still under discussion by WGEC under UN CSTD. The enhanced cooperation is considered besides the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). This specific mandate, involving “governments of member states on equal footing” is extremely important, as this would be crucial in determining the public policy on Internet Governance and should be implemented according to the Tunis Agenda.

The term “enhanced cooperation” has caused a lot of conflict. Perhaps we should stop referring to it since people disagree on what it means. I suggest we delete this paragraph.

Given the clear lack of common understanding for what the phrase “enhanced cooperation” means, it should not be included in this document.

The issue cannot simply be dropped. Better to address the concerns raised above that “nobody knows what enhanced cooperation means” by simply refering to the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation process which is already engaged in offering a definition and is mapping the terrain of enhanced cooperation. Without attempting a definition of its own, NETmundial can offer its support to this process.

In paragraph 9, we would recommend a few edits to clarify that multistakeholder mechanisms at the national level are already in place and could be enhanced. Second, we would recommend the deletion of “a fluent” since it only confuses the need for “coordination and dialogue”. Suggested edits:

“There is a need to enhance multistakeholder mechanisms at the national level owing to the fact that a good portion of Internet governance issues should be tackled at this level. National multistakeholder mechanisms should serve as a link between local discussions and regional and global instances. Therefore coordination and dialogue across those different dimensions is essential.”

- The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)

“Enhanced cooperation” in the context of Internet governance continues to defy an agreed definition. Given that it is being discussed at great length in other fora it is unclear what a statement like this contributes. It is probably wise to delete the paragraph (particularly as it is also far from clear what “priority and consensual basis” means).

It is clear from comments here and in discussions in other fora, that there is widespread uncertainty about what the term “enhanced cooperation” means. The Domain Name Association supports the edit proposed by SIIA, “All stakeholders should commit to full cooperation with each other, in a multistakeholder fashion, to address international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet.”

this is the mother of all contentions; which stakeholders will make public policies; what say will countries have on public policies affecting them – cybersecurity, IPRs, espionage, privacy, content regulation, cyber crimes? How will consensus emerge?

This paragraph assumes that “stakeholder representatives” are appointed, and that there are formal “stakeholder groups” as organisational entities that have processes and mechanisms.

This is true within certain Internet Governance-related bodies (e.g. ICANN), but not really so within others (e.g. IGF, ISOC, IETF).

This paragraph should not prompt bodies that use an open, inclusive and participatory model to move towards a closed, representative model.

I therefore suggest the first sentence is rephrased in the conditional form, as follows:

“When stakeholder representatives are appointed to multistakeholder Internet governance processes, they should be selected through open and transparent processes.”

While the requirement for selection of representatives through open, transparent, inclusive, well defined, accountable and publicly known decision making processes is welcome, Each organization must be able to appoint representatives in accordance with its own internal procedures. It would not be appropriate to envisage some overall set of rules that would constrain internal procedures.

In this context, it is noteworthy that the NetMundial meeting utilized non-transparent decision making processes in the appointment for instance of the business and civil society co-chairs for the meeting.

On “Stakeholder representatives appointed to multistakeholder Internet governance processes should be selected through open and transparent processes”, I recommend that the regional difference and development difference shall be taken into consideration to ensure the equal footing of all stakeholder.

will it be an open process in each country, who will administer that; or it’ll be at the international level, even more difficult for them to know the players in each country; selection will be biased as has happened several times in the past

“There is a need to develop multistakeholder mechanisms at the national level owing to the fact that a good portion of Internet governance issues should be tackled at this level” is somewhat tautological and does not address the real argument as to why the national and regional dimensions are important, which is based on the subsidiarity principle. The closer the discussions are produced to the different communities’ environment, the more accurately they will effectively address their problems.

IMHO this is somehow said in para 4 and others already, repetitions should be avoided in order to make it simple to read and understand.

In our view, para 10 should read as follows:

“5. There should be meaningful participation by all interested parties, having regard to their respective roles and responsibilities, in Internet governance discussions and decision-making, with attention to geographic, stakeholder and gender balance in order to avoid asymmetries.”

The rationale for this is:
* Suggest addition of the words “having regard to their respective roles and responsibilities” after the words “…all interested parties”.
* At present, the paragraph implies that all stakeholders / interested parties are to participate on equal footing, which demonstrates an incorrect understanding of representative democracy.

New edition: There should be meaningful participation by all interested parties in Internet governance discussions and decision-making, with attention to geographic, in order to avoid asymmetries.

This is essentially a repeat of nearly the same thing in several previous sections of the text. Such repletion only makes the document sound more doctrinaire. I recommend deleting it.

We welcome the contributions that are mentioned in this part, for instance, “meaningful participation” and “geographic balance “. A very important issue lies in the current Internet governance is the fact that the meaningful participation seems against the consensus principle. Geographic balance sets at least a specific and feasible standard to ensure that the geographic involvement is extensive. We call for further discussion on how to “ensure geographic balance” programs and policies.

Excellent however rather vague: (1) How to achieve “adequate funding” should be specified. (2) Measures for enforcing governments to effectively engage çivil society in the process should be specified. (See my related comment on Paragraph 4)

Strange construction. I recommend:

“In order to promote more including inclusive and effective governance, there should be remote participation …”

“…WSIS outcomes and Millennium Development Goals “ instead of “…the digital development agenda“.

New edition: All stakeholders must renew their commitment to build a people centered, inclusive and development oriented Information and Legal Society. Therefore in pursuing the improvements of the Internet governance ecosystem, the focus on the digital development agenda should be retained.

All stakeholders must renew their commitment to build a people centered, inclusive, sustainable and development oriented Information Society. Therefore in pursuing the improvements of the Internet governance ecosystem, the focus on the digital development agenda should be retained.

Internet governance should be strengthened by appropriate international mechanisms of technical regulation and efficient political response to Internet-related challenges and threats, providing a better correlation between the policy implications in technical decisions and technical implications in policy decision-making.

Should be ‘periodic reports’

New edition: All of the organizations with responsibilities in the Internet governance ecosystem should participate in the development and follow the correct procedures, appropriate for transparency, accountability and inclusiveness. All such organizations should prepare regular reports on their progress and status on these issues. Those reports should be made publicly available.

That should go to the session on institutional improvements

One of the most important improvements that should be established and operationalized is the new international enhanced cooperation body. It is important that decision-making and international public policy formulation be established via that body in such a way as to enable governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities regarding policy authority for international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet.

The UK Government does not agree with the implication that new mechanisms are needed; rather that this should be considered on case by case basis. We therefore propose the following text amendment:
“When there are emerging topics or orphan issues, consideration should be given to the appropriate mechanisms to address these.”

In our view, para 16 should read as follows:

“1. There is a need for mechanisms to consider emerging topics and issues that are not currently being adequately addressed by existing Internet governance arrangements”

The rationale for this is:
* The language used in calling for the creation of new mechanisms to deal with orphan issues is extremely weak and should be strengthened.
* Suggest deletion of the words “Consideration should be given to the possible” and replace with “There is a”

Suggest adding the phrase ” while maintaining the essential character of the IGF as a discussion and knowledge sharing forum rather than a negotiating or decision-making forum” to the end of paragraph 19 to clarify that the text is not designed to change the nature or character of the IGF, which has proven to be an effective forum at addressing Internet governance issues. Suggested paragraph with edit below:

“Improved outcomes: Improvements can be implemented including creative ways of providing outcomes/recommendations and the analysis of policy options, while maintaining the essential character of the IGF as a discussion and knowledge sharing forum rather than a negotiating or decision-making forum;”

- The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)

We would welcome improved dissemination of outcomes from the IGF and a focus on sharing good practice, and policy analyses and experiences. The IGF role of improving understanding about Internet governance issues is a particularly important one. We do not believe that the IGF is the right forum for making decisions or recommendations.

Document A/66/67- E/2011/79, i.e., the Report on the UN CSTD WG on Improvements to the IGF should be quoted and not only part of it.

would like to see more elaboration in this paragraph such as

1. publish a series of recommendations, similar to IETF RFC, in particular on its “Informational documents”. Examples may include “Multistakeholder Model”.

The Software & Information Industry Association supports strengthening the IGF, including by its providing outcomes/recommendations and the analyis of policy options. We believe, however, that at the same time, the IGF should be preserved as a discussion and knowledge sharing forum, rather than a venue for decisions or negotiations. The priority should be to sharpen the focus of IGF deliberations with a view to making them more impactful.

In my view, the IGF has been as successful as it has been precisely because it has been a non-decisional body. There is merit in considering how it’s functioning and output could be made more useful, but changes should not affect its non-decisional status.

Our members recommended an addition to this paragraph, so that the final text would include the bracketed language: “Improved outcomes: Improvements can be implemented including creative ways of providing outcomes/recommendations and the analysis of policy options[ while maintaining the essential character of the IGF as a discussion and knowledge sharing rather than a negotiation / decision-making forum];

Posted by accident under paragraph 16, this comment is now re-posted here where it was intended:

We would welcome improved dissemination of outcomes from the IGF and a focus on sharing good practice, and policy analyses and experiences. The IGF role of improving understanding about Internet governance issues is a particularly important one. We do not believe that the IGF is the right forum for making decisions or recommendations.

Is NET Mundial an extension of the IGF? I don’t think so. I hope is not. IGF have got enough time, power, media, to request and getting all what is needed to get results. This is not a fora | meeting | call to arms to help IGF.

Para 20 should be deleted.

“Deletion of references to IGF being a permanent forum is an advisable change, given that the IGF does not truly represent the interests of all those with a stake in Internet Governance – in particular those from the global south. The problems with the IGF are many and well documented and it suffices to state that recommending this be made into a permanent body without further and specific changes to its structure and functioning would be unadvisable.”

Agreed, this is a very inadvisable proposal. The IGF does not represent the interests of it’s constituents adequately.

This paragraph should be deleted.

We strongly support this idea.

We strongly endorse this.

While ensuring guaranteed stable and predictable funding is essential, a balanced source of funding, accountability and transparency are necessary in order to avoid specific stakeholders having excessive influence on IGF.

Not just “intersessional dialogues”, but dialogues between IGF, regional IGFs, and national IGFs.

Need to mention on more stregngthened secretriat, similar to ISOC, IETF,…

The deletion of references to 1Net is a positive change. 1Net was set up by ICANN, a US based corporation, and as such has no sanctity other than that conferred by this meeting/ad-hoc ICANN processes. To elevate this organization as was contemplated and ensure its continued importance to the multistakeholder model would be undemocratic and would merely preserve the status quo as far as inclusive and participatory structures are concerned.

Exchange “adopt” for “consider”. It is important that such means makes the dialogue available regardles of contraints from language and lack of resources for continuous participation.

We would welcome work to improve dialogue between regional and national IGFs and cooperation between them intersessionally.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) does not cover Enhanced cooperation that must be implemented according to the Tunis Agenda.

The UK Government proposes replacing the word “coordination” in the penultimate line which suggests a top down process, with the term “information sharing”.

Our members recommended several deletions and additions to this paragraph, so that the second and third sentences would read as follows: “… Periodic reports, formal liaisons and timely feedbacks are examples of mechanisms that could be implemented to that end. It would be beneficial to analyze the option of adopting or creating coordination tools to perform on-going monitoring, analysis, and information-sharing functions.”

Because the word “on-going monitoring, analysis, and information-sharing functions” is sensitive for many stakeholders in some cases, we should deliberately consider whether they will be needed or not, firmly sharing information about what the coordination tools are and how they work.

Add “countries” after “all stakeholders” so that the phrase becomes “all stakeholders and countries”.

We need to have as many countries as possible to involve on this process, and we need to outreach all 193 UN member countries or more.

The Software & Information Industry Association considers that the need to ensure the “operational functionality” should be included in this paragraph.

Suggested edits to paragraph 26 are to reinforce operational continuity of the Internet and the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance as the IANA functions are transitioned. Suggested edits below:

“The IANA functions are currently performed under policies developed in processes hosted by several organizations and forums. Any adopted mechanism should protect the bottom up, open and participatory nature of those policy development processes and ensure the stability, resilience and operational functionality of the Internet and its multistakeholder governance mechanisms.”

- The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)

In Verizon’s experience (having participated in all the global IGF’s), the exchange of knowledge and exploration of emerging issues in a non-decisional way has been a very constructive contribution to Internet governance. While the IGF can benefit from additional outputs, we believe its non-decisional nature encourages broad discussions and diverse input and should be preserved.

Our members recommended some changes to this paragraph, recommending that the final sentence now read as follows: “… Any adopted mechanism should protect the bottom up, open and participatory nature of those policy development processes and ensure the stability, resilience and operational functionality of the Internet and its governance mechanisms.”

clear delineation of technical operations, which must follow bottom-up process as it exists now, from the public policy matters that are of interest to nations, and which may require top-down approach too

Suggested addition -

To this end, we recommend that a full session be devoted to discussing progress on this issue at the Internet Governance Forum meeting in Istanbul in September 2014

“Equal participation among all stakeholder groups” is an illusion. Powerful internet companies are able to directly influence how people are able to communicate or not. Other stakeholder groups will never be equal to this. What we need is to empower all stakeholder groups to engage effectively, even if there are differences in regard to what effective participation in Internet governance means for each specific stakeholder group. In particular, governments need to empowered to be well informed so that needless or harmful legal regulation is avoided, while where regulation is needed, it can be created in a manner that is timely, effective, and without undesirable side effects. Civil society must be empowered to effectively represent the interests of those who (for whatever reasons) do not engage directly to represent their own interests, and to effectively point out abuses of power of any kind so that corrective action is taken quickly.

Somewhere it should mentioned that it is worth to explore whether there is a positive case for an international treaty on Internet Governance. I would define ‘truly international’ too, for example writing down a couple of minimal requirements an entity needs to satisfy as to be considered ‘truly international’. Maybe you could insert a new item on that.

Add the words “external and meaningful” before the phrase “accountability mechanisms…” to provide some description to the intention to create checks and balances.

There is no question of ICANN being a representative and legitimate body in so far as public policy decision making is concerned without reform of the role of the GAC and ensuring that representative political institutions are the ultimate arbiters and decision makers in so far as public policy is concerned.

Para 28 should be deleted.
There is no question of ICANN being a representative and legitimate body in so far as public policy decision making is concerned without reform of the role of the GAC and ensuring that representative political institutions are the ultimate arbiters and decision makers in so far as public policy is concerned.

ICANN has no internationally-agreed mandate for providing its activity; its functions are limited to controlling only critical resources of the Internet. Besides, ICANN is not a globally-represented international governmental organization, which automatically rules out complying with the principle of states equality in the sphere of Internet governance.
Explanation: The practical implementation of ICANN-declared multistakeholder model of the Internet governance does not guarantee that the governments of various countries are able to ensure their national public interests when ICANN makes any decisions on controlling the Internet critical resources, since the states have no voting power in working bodies of ICANN.

We believe it is important to highlight that both ICANN globalization and the IANA transition advance a non-governmental/multi-stakeholder approach for their respective functions with robust transparency and accountability.

USCIB supports the IANA transition from the US government to ICANN. However, it must not be captured by any governmental entity. Therefore it is essential that it is clear and the NETMundial Outcomes document specifically states that ICANN will remain a truly international and global “non-governmental” organization.

The words “speeds up” are unclear and should be removed. Processes related to the IANA transition and the “globalisation” of ICANN should be undertaken in a measured and predictable manner.

As ICANN is an independent body, the clause “an independent status and” should be removed:

“It is expected that the process of globalization of ICANN speeds up leading to a truly international and global organization serving the public interest with clear accountability mechanisms that satisfy requirements from both internal stakeholders and the global community.”

As proposed it may be a new global entity – IGO under international arrangements, not a globalized ICANN. In this way IGO may have independent status and clear accountability

Similar issue to 25.
Not just “all regions”, but “as many countries as possible” needs to be included for active participation.

The official purpose of NETmundial was twofold: to develop global Internet governance principles and the road map of the Internet governance ecosystem evolution. These two goals are enshrined in points I and II of the document. Thus it is unclear what is the purpose of the point III. More over the selection of topics and issues may be perceived as controversial, since two of them touches issues like security and Internet surveillance. One may ask why these points were chosen, since there are numerous other topics without a doubt worth considering, only to name few: net neutrality, privacy, infrastructure development, business online and many other. Thus we submit for consideration the following proposition:

- it would be valuable to make a brief introduction to this point explaining: what is the purpose of point III and on what grounds these three topics (Security and Stability, Internet surveillance and Capacity building) were included and others we not.

- since the composition of topics in point III may be controversial and the purpose of this point is unclear we also submit for consideration, as an alternative, deletion of point III.

All of the thoughts below are addressed earlier. This whole section could be deleted.

Initiatives to improve the current security and stability conditions since ICANN is not authorized to guarantee security of the DNS root servers infrastructure.
Explanation: In case the government is “shut off” from foreign DNS root servers, the Internet ceases to work in a basic mode. In crisis situations, having mirrors of the DNS root servers within the territories of states will not ensure integrity of national Internet segments, because this infrastructure is centrally directed by foreign DNS root servers providers all located in 3 countries in the world.

Real-world cases of Cyber Attacks from one state nation to another could be mentioned. Cyber Defense has, at least, the same importance level as Cyber Crime.

Cyber Attacks include, as an example and within a Cyber Defense context, attacks oriented to damage critical infrastructure systems in the attacked state. May a Cyber Defense mention be incorporated?

Valuable and interesting previous point of view.

That opinion deserve all my respect. Now please imagine a) Blowing up a nuclear facility, belonging to another state nation, using The Internet. b) Hacking a bank saving account belonging to a retired teacher using also The Internet.

Both cases are from real world. We could say, according to previous comment, two cases are violations of “safe use of Internet technology and technology itself”. Problem is that, essentially, both examples are completely different. We would be facing a homonymy scheme; same denomination, different nature.

Please consider that, the main condition to be accomplish by NETmundial Outcome Document is to be useful. I think that, precondition to be useful, is to be extremely clear. Naming Cyber Warfare to Warfare using The Internet (and so on) could have its own advantages. Are you agree?

Recognizing the difficulty and restrictiveness of formal agreements, and the need for flexible, rapid responses to cyber threats, Intel proposes the following:

It is necessary to continue work pursuing international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime. Discussions on those issues should be held in a multistakeholder manner.

New edition: It is necessary to continue work pursuing international agreements on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime and ensure the stability of all processes on the Internet. Discussions on those issues should be held in a multistakeholder manner.

The specification that security discussions should be held in multi-stakeholder fashion is welcome, because to date, this has certainly not been the case (eg. the Convention on Cybercrime).

Suggest replacing the word “agreements” with the word “cooperation” and agree with the comment above by Jeremy Malcom.

Our members recommended deletion of this paragraph.

There is broad consensus for the need to continue international cooperation on these issues. There is not international consensus on the need for additional treaties or agreements on these issues, however. We suggest replacing “agreements” with “cooperation.”

“It is necessary to continue work pursuing international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime. Discussions on those issues should be held in a multistakeholder manner.”

“…to promote cybersecurity, prevent and prosecute cybercrime, and combat spam. Discussions on these issues should include all stakeholders, in their respective roles, with particular expertise and responsibility for these issues.”

ITI does not believe that effective Internet governance requires the creation of new or additional agreements or treaties, including in the area of cybersecurity. Rather, greater international coordination is a better solution and can be accomplished using existing mechanisms and organizations.

ITI-Information Technology Industry Council

this paragraph may be confusing as new stakeholders such as researchers, software developers,..are introduced. it may be better to stick to stakeholders this document defined; government, civil society, private sector, technical community, academic community, and users. “researchers” or “technical experts” may be confusing wrt to academic community and technical community.

The important initaitive of Media and information literacy is missing here, so the revised text reads:
Initiatives to improve cybersecurity and address digital security threats should involve appropriate collaboration among private sector, researchers, technical experts, media and information providers, governments, international organizations, civil society and and NGOs. There are stakeholders that still need to become more involved with cybersecurity, for example, network operators and software developers, as well as organizations directly involved in capacity building on literate use of the Internet and its resources. Cybersecurity initiatives should include a capacity building component that provides basis for literate use of the Internet and its resources. Such use of the Internet is one of the key means and measures to ensure security, stability, inclusion and participation of all stakeholders.

Cyber security is indeed one of the topics requiring deeper involvement of all stakeholders. Nonetheless text in present form may suggest, that the involvement of net operators and software developers is, unlike involvement of other stakeholders, not sufficient. Such motion may not be fully justified. Network infrastructure and programs running on top of it are constantly under threat of attacks, security breaches or system failures. Most of the network operators and software developers are involved in cyber security on a daily basis. Thus we submit for consideration the following proposition:

- this paragraph should be supplemented with additional explanation why network operators and software developers involvement is at the moment not sufficient. Alternatively the text may be redrafted to clarify that: all stakeholders need to become more involved with cybersecurity.

New edition: Initiatives to improve cybersecurity and address digital security threats should involve appropriate collaboration among governments as well as private sector, researchers, technical experts, governments and NGOs. There are stakeholders that still need to become more involved with cybersecurity, for example, network operators and software developers.

The language that appeared in the initial iteration of the document should be reinserted: “International agreements should include measures of restraining cyber weapons development and deployment.”

Right now the militarisation of the internet is occurring – over 100 governments have dedicated resources to fighting battles online. The “cybersecurity” business is growing rapidly; Peter Singer and Allan Friedman’s book, “Cyber Security and Cyber War” estimate that in 2013 the US market alone was worth $65 billion. As more and more critical infrastructure resources around the world are maintained and operated through digital mechanisms, ensuring the security of these installations from targeted attacks is critical. International agreements are needed on how to prevent conflict in other traditional security domains from spreading to the cybersphere, and also to to avoid cyber activities being a trigger for wider conflict.

Cyber is different to other threats to peace and security that relevant actors are accustomed to addressing through diplomacy and arms control. Mutual understanding and definitions of attack in the cyber domain will certainly require more research as is suggested in comments above, but in order to reach international agreement on methods for cyber strategic messaging and filling the many gaps that need to be filled to build an enduring cyber stability regime.

Our members recommended additional language to this paragraph, to include the bracketed text: “There are stakeholders that still need to become more involved with cybersecurity, for example, network operators and software developers[ from developing countries].”

technical methods for cybersecurity agreed upon, or recommended by industry or technical experts to be vetted by IGO since it relates to national security concerns of countries

The UK Government proposes the following amended first sentence to make clear that it is not yet agreed that there should be new forums and initiatives:
“There may be a need for new forums and initiatives. However, they should not duplicate but to add to current structures.”

to add (d) “To solve the problem of provision of integrity, sustainability and security of national Internet segments functioning, states must have equal rights to govern Internet (including allocation, assignment and withdrawing numbering recourses, names, addressing and identification of the Internet, operation support and development of primary Internet infrastructure), which should be guaranteed by the competent international organization”.

New edition: There is room for new forums and initiatives, they should not duplicate, but to add to current structures. All stakeholders should aim to respect human rights, to leverage from and improve these already existing cybersecurity organizations. The experience accumulated by several of them demonstrates that, in order to be effective, any cybersecurity initiative depends on cooperation among different stakeholders, and it cannot be achieved via a single organization or structure.

There is a lot of work going on on security and stability. We should look at getting the best advantage from the existing structures and cooperation between the different initiatives before considering yet more initiatives.

This contradicts the WSIS outcomes which clearly stated that policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues.

Suggested addition

“In the meantime, we recommend the “necessary and proportionate” principles (contained at https://en.necessaryandproportionate.org/text) as a guideline to evolution of policy in this area

As there is no reference to “mass surveillance” in international human rights laws, the UK government recommends deleting “including mass surveillance” in the second sentence (fourth line). We believe that the sense of the text would not be impaired by this deletion.

Given that shocking revelations about mass surveillance sparked the NetMundial conference in the first place, this language is unacceptably vague and weak. More dialogue is not needed; urgent action is needed to rein in surveillance overreach. As noted above, mass surveillance does not exist in human rights laws – precisely the problem – this violation and threat should be explicitly prohibited in law.

No mass surveillance is necessary or proportionate; it is unacceptable and undemocratic because it treats all citizens as suspects. The treaties that recognise the human right to privacy and freedom of expression and association also recognize that there are legitimate surveillance activities and actors, and provide a licence for them to act with proper oversight and warrants based on reasonable suspicion of wrong-doing. It is appropriate for each intrusion into a citizen’s communications to be scrutinized by a judicial authority as necessary and proportionate, for the suspected crime to be serious and for the agency to be suitably skilled and equipped to handle this responsibility.

Online safety, as well as privacy and civil liberties can be enhanced through getting the combination of legal, technical and cultural initiatives right. The role of government is to promote collective protection against identity theft, online crime and acts of political violence, however, citizens have a legitimate expectation that their government will defend their democratic right to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom from arbitrary acts of coercion. This is especially the case when the blurring of terrorism with civil disobedience and healthy dissent has seen security agencies and police forces deployed against people simply exercising their right to protest or publish.

The HRC is not a multistakeholder forum and thus not best suited to this discussion. We suggest:

“Internet surveillance – Mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance ecosystem. Surveillance of communications, their interception, and the collection of personal data, including mass surveillance, interception and collection should be conducted in accordance with states’ obligations under international human rights law. More dialogue is needed on this topic at the international level using forums like IGF aiming to develop a common understanding on all the related aspects.”

I think the government need to focus more on this line, especially building the capacity of Civil Societies and making them more involve in the internet governance and strengthening. The future of governance and development is with the internet. So, it is very important for governments to ensure that people at the Base of the pyramid are reach, incapacitated and are fully participating with enhanced knowledge and activities.
More Financing are needed in this sector and let us hope there are more resources and program in this line in the future. There are many more stakeholders to be cover and make them involve, who need financial help and capacity building programs.

New edition: Capacity building and financing are key requirements to ensure that diverse stakeholders have an opportunity for more than nominal participation, but in fact gain the knowhow and the resources for effective participation. Capacity building is important to support the emergence of true multistakeholder communities, especially in those regions where the participation of some stakeholders groups needs to be further strengthened, without violating someone’s national interests.

Delete this section. Why should the outcome document give special mention to a small of number issues that were raised which were off-topic? There are very many other issues that would be equally deserving of being mentioned as further discussion topics.

Propose to delete section IV (blocks 37 through 41) for the reasons that there are very many issues that may need to be further discussed beyond NETmundial, that this would not be a complete lista, and that this is clearly communicated in section V.

“Orphan topics” such as net neutrality and cyberwar should be mentioned either in Section IV or Section V. Listing “orhpan topics” may be a good idea, and raise the issue that these topics of cyberspace shall be addressed in some or new organizations even though they may not ba proper topics to be covered within Internet governance.

futrher – > further

constributions -> contributions
futrher -> further

Many other points were raised in the contributions. For purposes of transparency, it should be explained why only these three were selected.

Go further and say how and where this should be further explored. Does NETmundial recommend that a new CSTD Working Group explore this issue? Or that the IGF do so? It cannot simply be left hanging, without any guidance as to where the disagreement can be resolved.

Roles, responsibilities and equal footing are clearly defined in the Tunis Agenda, a UN document, and also in the WGIG report

Jurisdiction issues. A question: if I think to have a case as to sue ICANN or an ICANN official, where do I sue, if possible at all? if I think to have a case as to sue ITU or an ITU official, where do I sue, if possible at all? (I do not really know, although I suspect the answers are different, pointers to reference are welcome.)

On 16.4.2014, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and member of the High-Level Multi-stakeholder Committee (HLMC) of NETmundial, sent an open letter to the members of the HLMC, to the Chair of the Meeting and to the two co-chairs of the Executive Multi-Stakeholder Committee. with a number of comments and recommendations. The full text of the letter is available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/content/netmundial-lets-get-work .

Relevant passage of Vice-President Kroes’ letter:

“It is natural, when talking about globalisation, to reflect not only on the amazing opportunities brought about by the Internet, but also on the challenges which this inherently cross-border medium raises with respect to the application of laws. The European Commission committed to launching an in-depth review of the risks, at international level, of conflicts of laws and jurisdictions arising on the Internet and to assess all mechanisms, processes and tools available and necessary to solve such conflicts.

The NETmundial draft outcome document clearly identifies jurisdictional issues and how they relate to Internet governance as “material for further discussion”. While I understand and agree that a full debate on this broad topic during NETmundial would be neither desirable nor productive, we should have a stronger commitment to a phase-by-phase examination of this issue, with a view to produce “good practice” guidelines as appropriate.

Accordingly, I suggest that the outcomes of NETmundial should include an invitation to interested parties to:

- develop a “scoping paper” by July 2014;
- facilitate on-line and off-line engagement opportunities, as appropriate, in the run-up to the 9th Internet Governance Forum (Istanbul, Turkey, 2-5 September 2014);
- following these discussions, aim to produce a first draft of “problem statements” and possible recommendations by the first half of 2015.”

It is difficult to see how a single “Code of conduct” for the entire ecosystem would be desirable or achievable. There does not seem to be an analogue that covers such breadth of scope and universality of application in any other “offline” field.

We suggest adding additional items 41bis ff. as follows:
- Financial issues
- Network Neutrality
- Infrastructure as a public good
- Basic Internet services as public services available to all
- Preventing abuse of dominant positions, at both national and international levels

In our view, additional issues, mentioned in the input documents, must be mentioned

I’m checking to see what measures are taken to authenticate attribution prior to publication.

Wasn’t the original spirit of NetMundial not to be binding nor resolutive?

Strongly support the change made in the bolded text. There seemed to be a clear understanding in the initial preparations for this meeting that it would not seek to achieve binding outcomes though its results certainly might contribute to such outcomes in the future.

In p.43 it’s not clear, how “the processes are encouraged to take into account” and why we need “to explicitly adhere” to a non-binding document?

New edition: All the organizations, forums and processes of the Internet governance ecosystem are encouraged to take into account principles agreed in NETmundial.

We suggest:

“All the organizations, forums and processes of the Internet governance ecosystem are encouraged to implement and adhere to all the outcomes principles agreed in NETmundial.”

Why wasn’t ICANN mentioned here? Doesn’t ICANN address policies that govern the use of the Internet? Its omission seems odd, even with the and other language.

to add “Summits in the WSIS format”

New edition: It is expected that the NETmundial findings and outcomes will discuss into other processes and forums, such as WSIS+10, IGF, and all Internet governance discussions held in different organizations and bodies at all levels.