IGF Consultations
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
10 May 2010
Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the May IGF Planning Meeting in Geneva. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
>>NITIN DESAI: Good morning. Welcome to Geneva for this open planning meeting, as we call it.
And the purpose is really to do the practical planning for the IGF meeting in Latvia [ sic ].
There are still a few people who are waiting to get in at the registration, but I think we better start.
But perhaps we may spend a few minutes with any general comments, remarks that people have which also gives the ones at the entrance time to come here.
Have you?
>>EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you very much and good morning. I have a statement in the name of the European Union, and this statement is on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states.
Firstly, I would like to focus on the preparations for this year's IGF. We welcome that the preparation for this year's IGF are already progressing. In this context we commend also the MAG for the work that it has done so far. We think that the structure of the present draft agenda allows to address a wide range of issues, in line with the IGF mandate agreed upon during WSIS.
This is very welcome as no topic should be a priori excluded from discussions at the IGF.
We welcome in particular that a space is foreseen to take account of national and regional IGF activities.
The EuroDIG meeting has recently taken place in Madrid. We trust that the messages from this event will be also fed into the global IGF.
We encourage all organizers of national and regional dialogue to provide their input into the global IGF. This growing replication of the multistakeholder format pioneered by the IGF is not only fulfilling the objectives of paragraph 80 of the Tunis Agenda but also the best illustration of the value of this process.
A major concrete outcome of the IGF is the demonstration of the viability and benefits of multistakeholder interaction.
At the same time, we would like to encourage all those involved in the preparations for sessions at the IGF to join their efforts and avoid repetitions of sessions on identical subjects.
We are sure that one of the benefits of the IGF is bringing together stakeholders that might not have met otherwise, and hold different views.
Therefore, it might be better to have a wide variety of views in one session rather than several sessions, looking at the same topic from different angles with the obvious risk of repetition and overlap.
Encouraging mergers between workshops addressing similar issues and improving the relationship between workshops and main sessions should be a major focus of the preparation of this year's IGF.
As within the European Union, we are already aiming at coordinating ourselves in this respect. We note that this is not an easy task, but we would see value in placing efforts towards this goal.
Mr. Chairman, please allow me some words about an issue that is not directly related to the organization of this year's IGF but which is, nevertheless, pertinent to our exchanges.
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight, once again, that the European Union, like the overwhelming majority of speakers at the consultations in Sharm El Sheikh, is absolutely convinced that the Internet Governance Forum should be continued beyond its initial time frame of five years. Its comprehensive mandate and main characteristics -- in particular, its nonbinding, multistakeholder character -- are the core foundations upon which we can all develop the IGF further, while keeping with the spirit of the practices we have collaboratively developed during its first five years.
More than ever, the Internet Governance Forum in its working and functioning is and has to remain multi-lateral, multistakeholder, democratic and transparent.
We note that the Tunis Agenda in its paragraph 111 requests the United Nations General Assembly to make an overall review of the implementation of WSIS outcomes in 2015.
We, therefore, consider that the IGF should be renewed, at least until the overall WSIS review in 2015. We believe that while the UNGA will take the ultimate decision on the continuation of the IGF, both CSTD and ECOSOC should be involved in preparing this decision. It is important to distinguish the question of the continuation of the IGF from more organizational questions. The former should be the only topic addressed in the U.N. spaces such as the CSTD, ECOSOC and UNGA. The latter should respect the spirit of the Tunis Agenda mandate, as well as the operating modalities that have progressively emerged. Further evolutions of the IGF working methods should, therefore, be discussed among all stakeholders through IGF's self-organizing processes.
We support to hold the traditional stock-taking exercise on methodology that normally takes place every February at an earlier date.
For instance, in November.
This will be a unique opportunity for forum participants to draw lessons from the first five years, examine the articulation of the national and regional exercises with a global event, and, more generally, to discuss in a multistakeholder format possible further improvements of the IGF working methods.
In particular, we think that there is certainly more room for increased outreach and visibility in the IGF. The IGF is such a useful and beneficial platform that it would be, indeed, deplorable if it was not made more widely known.
We think that it would be particularly beneficial to further encourage and increase participation from developing countries, youth, policymakers, including parliamentarians, and businesses.
This way, the IGF can inform and impact debates and decision-making processes in other fora and organizations.
We believe that the past meetings of the IGF have demonstrated that the IGF provides added value to debates elsewhere rather than duplicating them.
We are confident, however, that the exchanges within IGF structures allow a good platform to address the question how do increase outreach and visibility.
Regarding improvements to visibility, it could be useful to transmit the summary of the Chair to a wider range of fora, and at the same time, add a nonnegotiated synthesis of the meeting, including, where possible, on-site reports from workshops and other sessions.
In the context of enhancing outreach, we welcome very much the work undertaken regarding remote participation. Contributions should be made accessible to wide variety of public using captioning and multilingual sessions may be considered.
While it might not replace actual participation at the meeting, which should be therefore also, further, faster, it does certainly contribute positively to making the exchanges at the IGF known to a wider public and to feeding those discussions with even more voices.
We believe, however, that it is a task for every participant to contribute towards those goals: Visibility and outreach.
One of the prerequisites for allowing more outreach is the openness of the IGF, and therefore, we see value in maintaining it, in particular with respect to participation as well as with respect to the topics addressed.
It should remain a forum where discussion on all issues relating to Internet governance is encouraged and welcome.
I would like to take this opportunity to deeply thank the IGF Secretariat and the chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for the remarkable and efficient work they do in helping bridge differences and organize this unique gathering.
Finally, I would like to express gratitude to the government of Lithuania for hosting this year's IGF. Following the first IGF in Athens, we welcome that the IGF is coming back again to the European Union. We are committed, as in previous years, to work with all stakeholders in order to contribute to the success of this year's meeting.
At the same time, we are already looking forward to the meeting after Vilnius. In this regard, I would like to warmly thank Kenya for already offering to host the 2011 IGF.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
First, an apology. I said Latvia, because of Janis Karklins' influence. He has been their -- But of course our meeting is in Lithuania in September.
Thank you very much.
Are there any further general comments which people wish to make while we wait for our people who are held up?
Those who are in the center row, please wave their flag. I am a little unsighted. If you can balance it on your head that, would be even better but at least wave it so I can see.
Yes.
>>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Good morning. When considering the position on the renewal of the IGF, the United States government found the interventions from participants during the taking stock and looking forward segment at the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh to have been very helpful.
It was our impression that a sizable majority of the participants spoke in favor of the continuation of the IGF beyond its five-year mandate, coming from the World Summit on the Information Society.
The establishment of the Internet Governance Forum was one of the key outputs of the WSIS. The United States of America takes this opportunity to reiterate its commitment to the results of the WSIS and, in particular, to convening of the IGF.
The IGF has proven to be a valuable venue for information sharing and international dialogue on topics critical to global economic, social and political development. Substantive discussions among all stakeholders, as called for in the WSIS Tunis Agenda, have occurred in the IGF. These discussions have fostered the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet.
The flexible structures used at the IGF open forums, workshops and main sessions have evolved into a dynamic -- have evolved into dynamic mechanisms that effectively facilitate exchange of information and best practices among and between stakeholders.
We believe that the current work methods of the IGF are fully consistent with principles as agreed in the WSIS documents, and that the IGF is addressing appropriately its mandate as articulated in the Tunis Agenda.
We hope that cross-cutting themes of development and capacity building will find renewed emphasis in future IGFs.
Consequently, the United States supports the continuation of the IGF beyond its initial five-year mandate. The United States commends the IGF Secretariat as well as current and past multistakeholder advisory group members for their tireless efforts in supporting the continued positive evolution of the IGF and in guiding the IGF towards its present status as a major international venue for the discussion of Internet-related public-policy issues.
We continue, therefore, to believe that it is important that the IGF have a lightweight and decentralized structure and that the MAG be the principal locus for the development of topics, speakers, format and agendas for the IGF.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Any further comments?
Okay.
There's a remote participant.
>>REMOTE PARTICIPATION WORKING GROUP: Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. Actually, I am not speaking as a remote participation. For once I am actually here, but I am speaking for the Remote Participation Working Group.
First of all, I would like to thank very much our representative, our colleague here for supporting remote participation, and I would ask that we work on including that in every single workshop and that we find a way to follow the example given by the Council of Europe and all of those who worked on EuroDIG, which had excellent participation remotely, both with remote hubs and with the panels, because they had a remote moderator on every workshop, every session, every panel.
That is the only way to truly have remote participation, not just remote observation.
One thing is to just watch the Webcast; another is to actually have an opportunity to remotely participate.
So appropriate input has to have a good channel on every workshop.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Certainly, I think we should spend time during the meeting on this. Photograph okay.
Good.
Markus. Can you now guide us on what is our goal for this open consultation.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, thank you.
Good morning.
Maybe just to link on what Ginger said on remote participation.
We had a few e-mails that people who had plans to attend had to cancel their participation because due to flight cancellations because of the volcanic ash, and we make every effort to enhance remote participation to enable them to participate remotely.
The doors into the remote participation are all posted on our Web site. We have, at this time, we have also live text streaming, not just the -- on our Web site, not just in the room. So that will make -- I think, make it easier to follow the meeting.
The aim for this meeting, while it is a planning meeting and obviously it would be nice to go as far as possible with defining the program for the Vilnius meeting. Obviously we may not be able to sign it off completely, and we still have the possibility of meeting end of June. We have a slot reserved for meeting them.
However, the aim should be, at least, to find the moderators for each of the sessions to identify the workshops we would like to feed into the relevant main session. Maybe pick workshops as they are proposed or maybe ask workshops that have been proposed to merge and to then be given a slot which will make it easy for them to feed in.
We don't need to identify every single workshop we want to have. Obviously, there will be some work that needs to be going on after this meeting, and I presume we will have to approach many of the workshop proponents and ask them to reconsider and to consider merging.
We had, again, many, many workshops. I think it's roughly around 100, and we clearly will not be able to give each and every one of them a slot. I think this is, on the one hand, it was also the general feeling at the February consultations that we need to reduce the number of workshops, and, on the other hand, there will not be physical slots for them. So the two coincide.
We have lengthened the workshop slots this year, again in response to many requests who found that the 90 minutes were really too short, by the time you get started and then you have to clear the room and make the room available for the next workshop. So we always lose time, and there was, in the end, not that much time.
So every workshop and every other event, we have fixed on a tentative schedule, a two-hour slot.
Last year, we experimented with three-hour slots. Whether or not we want to maintain some slots. But the reactions I heard from those who actually had three-hour slots was that maybe it was a little bit too long for what happens.
So generalized, two-hour slots may well work well.
We have prepared an updated program paper, and you have the workshop lists. So these will -- are some main documents. And in addition, we picked up a suggestion that was made as an input in our February meeting to have resource persons. And that proved, actually, to be very successful. We had, I think, close to 60 names who volunteer to be resource persons, as panelists on a workshop or also resource person in a main session. The moderator can call upon these resource persons who give their opinion.
So we have these three documents. We can draw on the resource person, maybe see how they would fit some workshop panels. We can look at the workshop list, but my suggestion would be to take, as a starting point, the schedule which is on the program paper on page 6, so we could take that as a starting point, take session by session, then identify the workshops that are relevant and that could be linked to this relevant session, if you would agree to proceed like that.
>>NITIN DESAI: We'll do that.
As you know, we were going to start -- The format, as you know, was that there would be the afternoon opening, and that the morning would be devoted to the -- what we call Internet governance 101. I know we don't call it that but it is basically setting the scene.
It's really to provide an orientation for people who are probably -- who may be coming there for the first time. But an overview of what is going to happen or what IGF, what the issues are and so on. And it has generally been quite successful. We have done it in the past.
And then there was a certain amount of discussion on the regional perspectives session. That will be followed by the closing -- sorry, the opening ceremony.
So shall we begin with that, perhaps? I think the regional perspectives, there was some discussion on how to structure it, and also on the Internet governance.
The open ceremony is a fairly straightforward thing where it doesn't require that much, but let's start with any comments.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: On the setting the scene session, actually I would have a suggestion.
Last year, we did not just only have beginners coming in. It was actually quite full. And we gave, then, basically stakeholder perspectives on the IGF, which fed in nicely into the overall meeting, especially as last year was a question of recommendations of the consultation on the future.
So that certainly made sense.
This year -- But it was not so much as explaining the IGF, the working.
So -- But I don't think this kind of it session would need a center stage. We could have that kind of session, we could have IGF for beginners in a smaller room. And what I would suggest in the main center stage would be a discussion that came out of a discussion I had with Bill Drake. He is the editor of this year's IGF books and he was planning a workshop with some of the authors. He asked some authors to contribute to the book, and the idea would be a little bit to look at each of the main themes, how they have evolved in the past five years, so it would be a more -- a substantive -- the idea would be then to use these authors for this kind of setting the scene session.
I think there are some MAG members among them. I think Wolfgang is one of the authors, I think Jeannette is one of the authors, I think Parminder is one of the authors, that they would give their perspectives on each of the issues, so it could be a more substantive session which I think would be of interest to a more general audience. And we could then have sort of a 1.0 session in a smaller room where we explain what the program is, how it works, and if you want to take the floor, what you have to do and so on and so on.
This would be my suggestion for the setting the scene this year.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Yes, Ginger, then Ayesha.
>>REMOTE PARTICIPANT:
Now I am actually speaking for a remote participant. We have Rafik Dammak of the Youth Coalition with a comment, first of all, that he also felt that the orientation session last year was extremely effective, thank you to the organization and preparation. And he would like to reiterate the need for youth participation on that and each of the panels, each of the sessions. He asks, we do have two youths that will speak later for the youth, but he, Rafik, has also asked that we mention the need to include youth moderators in as many sessions as possible and on the orientation one.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Ayesha.
>>ICC: Thank you. I think that's a productive approach to the session. I think we said before the people in the business community felt this was a very useful session and it should continue. I'm not sure who all are the authors of the book, so I want to underscore I think it's going to be important to have the full range of multistakeholder participation to the extent possible. And if there isn't a business person, then I would be happy to help facilitate that.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: .
So essentially this first session, in a way, is looking at -- how the substantive issues have evolved over five years. The way I would put it is we have been around five years. The Internet has evolved over these five years. In what way have we been able to play a role in that or change in response to that, you see, because the Internet now is quite different from what it was when we met this Athens five years ago.
There are many things which have changed substantially. It would be very nice if we could present just a snapshot, since we have done five years. In a sense, all of us have collaborated on this.
How has it changed over these five years? Terms of its reach, in terms of its modalities, in terms of its technologies, the whole business of Web 2 and so on.
And then we can see how the process, the IGF process, has responded to this.
So it becomes something more than just 101. It's looking at how the issues have evolved over the years.
There is also looking ahead. Also, there will be a session at the end on taking stock of Internet governance and the way forward.
In a way, we would be doing this at the beginning and at the end, both. There probably will be a little bit of an overlap between these two sessions, but that's unavoidable.
Any other comments on this opening session or can we move on to the regional perspectives?
Okay. Regional perspectives.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: The regional perspectives is relatively straightforward, as we have now many regional meetings. We have a Latin American and Caribbean, and we have a Caribbean regional. We have an East African regional meeting. I don't know whether there will be a West African this year but you had one last year. There EuroDIG regional and also this year for the first time will be an Asia-Pacific meeting that will take place in June in Hong Kong.
I'm not sure whether there will be a commonwealth meeting or not, or that there will be something, I think, in Vilnius, but not before.
So basically, we would have a panel that would allow spokespersons of each of these regional meetings to participate. But clearly, we would not have the time for a fully-fledged report. We would expect the report to be made available beforehand in writing in any case, and posted on their respective Web sites. We have links to all of these on our Web site. And what we would have is a little bit of a more focused discussion to find the commonalities between these meetings, also to find their differences, and to find the regional priorities as each of them has a different character. Clearly the priorities are not the same in every region and that would be, I think, what participants would be mainly interested in.
And then, also, their input, their message, what should be -- what the IGF in Vilnius should look at as seen from their regional perspective.
We did say we would give each regional meeting a slot for an open forum where they can present their findings more in detail, and we would also keep a slot open for the regional meetings where they can meet among themselves, with, of course, other interested participants, to discuss the interaction between them and the linkages with global IGF.
There is clearly, I think, a feeling out there that we ought to make more to bring in the regional meetings and to link them stronger to the IGF, but we are not quite sure quiet on how to do it. And I think it will be very much in the IGF spirit and tradition if the proposal came from the regional meeting themselves, how we can better integrate them into the global meeting.
>>NITIN DESAI: Comments on the regional? Comments, questions, issues, on the regional meeting? Any? Yes, Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Thank you. Just a quick -- a quick remark to pick up on the notion that Markus has mentioned about the notion of input.
We have been talking a lot about the outputs and the outcomes of the global IGF. It's very interesting to see that the regional ones are now trying to formulate things in a relatively concise manner. And this session in the -- on the first day is probably an opportunity for the different regional meetings to provide input into the IGF. And one way for that is to try to find formulations that shift the debate a little bit and make the topic more acceptable by the different actors.
One example, in Madrid, was my understanding was that the debate about network neutrality could actually be framed in terms of limitations to traffic management. And if the regional IGFs could propose themes or topics that are formulated in a way that makes them common interest for the different actors instead of being advocacy positions, it would greatly help the global discussion.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
>>LISA HORNER: Thank you. I'm Lisa Horner. I am representing the Internet Rights and Principles dynamic coalition.
Our membership of the coalition is growing quite rapidly at the moment and it is something we are quite excited about and we are currently having a push for regional outreach. We would like the coalition to be a lot more representative of the different regions that are participating in the IGF.
And as part of that process, one of our activities for the year is to have coalition members from each of the regions to act in a way as rapporteurs for the coalition on rights and principles at each of the regional IGFs.
And the plan is for them to report back on what was discussed regarding human rights, the openness and the public interest dimensions of Internet governance at each of the regional IGFs. And then we in the coalition will be work to go compile a report that then takes those perspectives from the different regional dimensions and compiles them -- compares the different dimensions, compares the discussions which were had, and then compiles them into a global report.
So that's something we are doing to try to link together, in a way, the regional IGFs to hopefully be able to create some kind of common analysis, common positions, et cetera.
So we'd be very keen to present our findings at the IGF in September, and I'd also like to invite the leaders and the people who are involved in organizing the regional IGFs, and, indeed, national IGFs as well. I would love to talk to you so that we can get this process under way and happening effectively.
And I wonder, maybe, if that might be a model for other themes that the IGF obviously addresses. For example, critical Internet resources, access, et cetera, so that we start to build up a perspective that is thematic rather than just split into the different regions.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Yes, Waudo.
>>W. SIGANGA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I just to start off to give some information that the East Africa IGF will be held on the 2nd and 4th of August in Kampala, so if there are colleagues here who would like to attend, they would be welcome.
Then I wanted to perhaps just ask a question. These reports that we are thinking of in this particular session, could we perhaps have an idea of how to put them in a formatted way so that every report is comparable in some way or the other, rather than perhaps the people giving the reports just giving the report on an ad lib basis. We could have something like a template in which the reports could be fitted and then we could be at least able to compare the reports.
Is it possible to have something like a template or guidelines?
I think that would also help, perhaps, with the timing so we are sure every report fits within a particular time period.
>>NITIN DESAI: As a first step I would suggest that it would be very helpful if the contribution from the regional IGFs could follow the structure of the themes we have set out for the main session.
So the inputs could come in according to the themes that I will set up there. But it need not be restricted completely to that. There may be issues which you want to bring in which don't completely fit in neatly under this heading. But to the extent possible, we would -- that could be one starting point for a template.
What is your thought?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I agree with you. I think we should not have a one-size-fits-all template, to be too rigid on that because each region might have a different approach. But as a general structure, I mean, classical things: The meeting took place, that many participants, so on. And the main themes, I think most of the regional meetings followed more or less the main themes we have in the global context, but at the same time, each of them had a slightly different take. And I think that is fine if there are slight differences.
Let's be flexible on that.
>>NITIN DESAI: I would also say that the possibility of the regional open forums is a very valuable one and may provide the time and the space which often the Ministers and senior dignitaries who attend these meetings look for. And I think one should use that opportunity to give them a sense of doing more than just sitting and listening to speeches.
So I think whoever is organizing this, I would urge that you use it also as an opportunity for engaging the senior officials who will be coming from the countries in the region, the senior civil society people, the people from industry in the region who will be there.
Okay. Are there any further remarks, thoughts on the meeting on the regional?
As I said, in the middle row, either wave or balance it on your head. I can't see.
Okay.
Remote? Yes, Ginger.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Actually, it's not a remote participant but what I would like to do is make sure, again, speaking for the remote participants, that on the regional input, once again the regional participation is going to be very important because we can involve the remote hubs. There are actual -- the remote hubs, for those who aren't familiar with them, are actual groups of people attending in parallel with the IGF. So they are a whole group of people, and they will have their input, and that's a good way to include them.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Any questions here on moderators or any such thing on the first two sessions which you need to discuss?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I would suggest, then, having Bill Drake doing the first session with the authors. So we say authors-plus, to make sure we have a balanced multistakeholder speakers, and I will be happy to moderate the regional perspectives as I attend many of these meetings.
>>NITIN DESAI: So the thought is since the one person who is probably going to be present at the most of the regional meetings, and in that sense can connect them, will be Markus himself and, on the first one, since Bill Drake and these people are organizing this exercise on the review of -- on how the -- on this theme, that they could be asked to moderate the setting-the-scene session.
A lot of them will be people who have been involved in this process for the past program. I think Wolfgang is involved in this process. Bill Drake is. Who are the others?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I don't have the full list ready.
>>NITIN DESAI: But they are --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: It's Parminder and Shawnette. Do you know the full list.
>>NITIN DESAI: All the usual suspects.
>>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: We have some new names, but I will not have the full list here. Augment (inaudible).
>>NITIN DESAI: Very good. It's like the last line in "Casa Blanca," round up the usual suspects.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: It did make the point we have to have some --
>>NITIN DESAI: The opening session, are there any -- is any reflection on the opening session from Lithuania? Would you like to say a word on the opening session about what we envisage, who you think will be there by way of dignitaries from Lithuania and whether there are any other that we might expect. Please, remember this, the reason I am pushing this a little is, this is not our usual May meeting. Because we are at this time meeting ten to 12 weeks ahead of our normal schedule.
So this is comparable to the sort of meeting we had in September in the past IGFs. We don't have that much time between now and the Vilnius meeting. So in that sense, we have to try and be fairly precise in what we say and do at this meeting here, because we have less time than in earlier IGFs. We are meeting nearly ten weeks ahead, mid-September instead of -- well, it was early December, late November in the other cases, you see. So are there any reflections on the opening session, opening ceremony or opening ceremony/session, or whatever you call it, in Lithuania? Would you like to say a word?
>>LITHUANIA: We did not consider very deeply about what speakers will be here. But, anyway, at the present time, we are considering even we can have an opening session, our president or to have prime minister. We have two opportunities. Of course, only one of them will be on the opening session. Of course, I think about minister of transport and communication. And the rest of the session is yours, I think.
>>NITIN DESAI: And, of course, we've always had a certain practice of making sure that the opening session reflects the multistakeholder character of the forum.
>>LITHUANIA: Yes, of course.
>>NITIN DESAI: That it is not a pure governmental event; it is something which all stakeholders have a presence. So that dimension also has to be worked out as to the other stakeholder -- Any reflections, thoughts on this right now? Or should we leave this for later?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think we can leave it. But we have taken notes that there are many comments that may be in Sharm it was a little bit too long. So we will try and -- but, I mean, there are -- sometimes it's difficult to say "no." I mean, the very people who say we should have less speakers are the ones who will insist that their superior can speak. That's my experience, at least. But I think we can leave that to a later stage, which will bring us, then, to the next main session, managing critical Internet resources. There, we have moderators, Chris and Jeanette. And my suggestion, then, would be to looking at the workshops that have been proposed under that heading. We had 14 workshops on the critical Internet resources.
And we are still not -- I have to add a word of apology. I mean, the workshop list is up on our Web site. But not all the links are working to the reports. But I hope we will be able to sort that out during the meeting.
We were moderately successful, I think, in enforcing the reporting requirement. We did say to a few workshop proponents, "We will not post your proposal because we have never received a workshop." Some of the reports are still not visible on the Web site because of some glitches. But we have received the reports. So this is the list of critical Internet resources, workshops, we had, as I said, 14 workshops. I wonder whether there are any comments on these workshops which are found that are particularly relevant which we should focus on as workshops that could feed fruitfully into the main session.
Can we take any of these workshops as it is? Or should we ask some of them maybe to merge and then give them the green light once they are merged? So these are my introductory comments.
Emily.
>>NITIN DESAI: Emily. Emily Taylor.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. One workshop that seemed particularly relevant to the critical Internet resources session under a different perspective is number 63, strengthening ccTLDs in Africa, which I think would present a new perspective that hasn't been heard in these sessions very much.
There are also quite a number that could be merged. For example, there's -- there's a number that are broadly dealing with issues such as DNSSEC and Internet resource certification and Internet routing. They come from different perspectives, but I think this is what we were all looking for, to merge workshops where they are -- so that we will hear the different perspectives in one place on broadly the same themes.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: So the three that you are saying is one is this Internet resource certification, the routing, and --
>>EMILY TAYLOR: 141, deploying DNSSEC in the territory.
>>NITIN DESAI: These three. So one is ICANN advisory committee, source one is -- would be Internet Governance Project. Markus.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Emily, could you repeat the numbers.
>>NITIN DESAI: 141, deploying --
>>EMILY TAYLOR: --
>>NITIN DESAI: Then 158, interresource certification.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: And 147.
>>NITIN DESAI: (inaudible) towards Internet routing.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Just while I have the microphone, there was a very interesting proposal, 117, on cloud computing, which picks up some of the suggestions at earlier meetings that cloud computing is dealt with in a main session.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I wonder whether there are comments on this merger proposal. Is any of the concerned proponent of 141, 158, or 147, either participating or participating remotely? As I noticed, everybody is in favor of merging, but nobody wants to be merged, so....
We will be interested to hear.
>>NITIN DESAI: In a sense, two of them are both -- the contract is Milton Mueller. The Internet resource certification and the who controls Internet routing are both by Milton Mueller, Internet Governance Project. And that just means -- that and ICANN. It's essentially two people who have to be coordinated. And this is a clear suggestion we can pass on to Milton Mueller, saying that, "Look, the two projects that you have, are -- there's a suggestion that they can be combined. And a third one, which would be -- which could be linked with this could be the ICANN one on DNSSEC, the security of the DNS system."
So why not look at that? Shall we do that? Shall we suggest -- yes, Bertrand.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Just one brief comment.
I -- Sorry.
Wrong moment.
[ Laughter ]
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: One brief comment. I understand the last one that is proposed by Milton, the 147, is slightly different from the others. So grouping the ones that deal with DNSSEC will probably make perfect sense. He might want to keep the 147 separate, which is addressing a slightly different topic. Which has not been really addressed at this stage in the IGF really. Just a suggestion.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Yes, Ayesha.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Just a general comment as we start looking at the workshops and the link to main sessions. I think, overall, there's some very interesting proposals, and they've evolved over the years. I also think that we see a lot of repetition of the same organizations, entities, or proposed invited speakers throughout many of the proposals. And I think it would be useful for organizations who are proposing three, four, five different workshops to maybe be asked to choose. Because it's -- it would be a way to focus the workshops as well as give a broader range of stakeholders the opportunity to be involved in them, plus I was really unclear in many of the workshop proposals where they said they were inviting speakers, when you have a repetition of a lot of the same people on those lists, how realistic is that and how do we judge the multistakeholder nature of the panels that will take place.
Thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Maybe a short comment on the workshop.
Maybe we made a slight mistake by not making it clear that we wanted a preliminary list of speakers. We had a deadline for a final list of speakers end of May. And some workshop proponents took this very literal and did not propose any speakers at all, but just saying, "We will invite speakers," which makes it, of course, very difficult to assess the quality of their approach.
But we do have now also, in a sense, a corrective element through the list of resource persons. We can also propose speakers to them, and especially sometimes it's not that easy to have sufficient geographic diversity because you lack the contacts. But we do have now a fairly good list which represents good geographic diversity so we can actually say why not have this speaker maybe from the African region who seems to have the profile you would have for your workshop. So this is also my suggestion, that you look at the list of resource persons in parallel.
>>NITIN DESAI: Any other reflections? We still haven't really moved a little on the issue of which are the workshops which you want to -- which we would link with the main session.
Remind us, what did we say we were going to talk about in the main session?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, we have an indicative list of issues which is more or less --
>>NITIN DESAI: Everything.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, it's fairly -- we have bullet points. But, I don't know, it might be also interesting to hear from -- Chris is here as one of the moderators. Ask him whether he has some thought to how to structure and moderate the session.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Markus, and thanks for the warning that you were going to ask me that.
I don't -- unless anybody has any really strong objections or there are any issues or problems raised from last time, I think pretty much the way we -- the way we organized it last time kind of worked. Open session, you know, no panels, et cetera.
I can't see any point in tinkering with it if it worked. But I'm also happy to listen to anybody's -- any feedback from anybody if they think that some changes should be made to the way that it was structured.
>>NITIN DESAI: I'm not talking -- I don't think the issue was structure. But, for instance, we have -- we have a -- said under critical Internet resources, one of the things we have picked on is the importance of new TLDs and IDNs for development. I'm reading from this.
Now, we do have a session here, a workshop, on new gTLDs and TLDs for development, which is being done by -- no -- ICANN.
So there's another one -- that's on ccTLDs.
But that's what is the thought, is what is it that we make sure takes place before the session. And where you would then be able to draw on that workshop. And that identification. Because we can't really accommodate everything in the -- the first day. So we have to have some sense of priorities, saying that of these 14 or so workshops, which are all relevant for the session on the first day, which are the three or four that we would definitely wish to see happening before the event. You don't have to decide this now.
Let's keep this on -- and we can come back to this. Because I think this is the sense which -- your guidance which the secretariat needs to have. Some people say, please try to do the workshop on the first day. And others, if you want to do it on the first day, they say, "No, please wait." And in that sense, that's the thought we are trying to. Which -- three or four. How many can we accommodate on the first day of the 14?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: In theory, about seven or eight, I think.
>>NITIN DESAI: About seven or eight.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: But you probably don't want seven or eight workshops from the same section.
>>NITIN DESAI: Correct.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: So three or four sounds like a reasonable number. I'll get back to you later on today.
>>NITIN DESAI: Have a look at the list.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I will. I'll get to that later on today.
>>NITIN DESAI: Have a look at the list, come back and say, "These are the ones which are either novel and we're going to come up with something which is new, or which fit in very well with the themes, and we should encourage them to do it on the first day."
The suggestion is that in terms of moderation, we continue with the -- what has worked in the past two sessions, three sessions.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Two.
>>NITIN DESAI: Two. Which is that Chris and -- Disspain and Jeanette Hofmann, who have been the sort of -- well, I was going to call it a "Pat and Mike act," except that's not really appropriate -- who have the dual act which manages this quite well. And I have had no complaints from anybody. And it seems to have worked quite well. So why not just stick with what has worked instead of experimenting with something new.
Okay. Good.
The -- shall we move on to the afternoon session, which is on security, openness, and privacy.
Markus.
We have quite a large number of workshops there.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. There is -- I think it's been the most popular subject for workshops. And it is a long list of subitems, so it will be quite a difficult session to structure. And we do need to decide on who should moderate this session, and also how to approach it. I think in February, there was a general feeling that we do more and more sessions like we did the critical Internet resources in the form of an open dialogue session instead of panels.
So -- But we haven't sort of made a firm decision yet on how to approach it. So these questions are open.
And that, I think, we need to address.
>>NITIN DESAI: Do we really think of it as three discussions? Do we really try and combine and have a discussion which moves across the space on security, openness, and privacy?
We have experimented, I think, previously with doing it in two parts; right? If I remember, once we tried....
It is a difficult session to handle, because there are -- on security, there are certain issues which are very specific, on, for instance, workshops here dealing with issues of security. On openness, you have a different class of issues which come in in terms of freedom of access. I think this is also the space where we talk about open standards and access to information.
And privacy is something which impinges perhaps a little bit more on the security theme. Right?
We have always said that there is this balance within security, privacy.
I don't see -- I don't know how many -- whether there are many workshops on the privacy issue.
There are quite a few on open standards and so on.
And, of course, as you would expect, they deal on openness.
How do we do this? How do we -- because it's -- I -- do we just rely on one person to orchestrate this all? I think that's a little difficult. Do we break it up into sessions? Come, come. Make some suggestions.
Yes, ginger.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Sorry, I hate to talk so much. The problem is so many people are missing because they missed flights. For instance, Katitza is not here, because she had her flight cancelled three times. She would be speaking out very loudly. She's not on remote. I hope that means she's flying. But when I look at that, it seems to me there are several areas that need to be addressed. Certainly -- I don't see the child online safety people here. And that's definitely a section in security that needs to be addressed. There's privacy. There's cloud computing. And there's cybercrime. So there are definite areas. And I'm a little bit worried about the people that aren't here.
>>NITIN DESAI: That's okay. There are many others who can speak for them.
>>GINGER PAQUE: So I'm speaking for them. I don't know -- I don't know anything about it, but I know they would want those topics mentioned. So thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think the topics is not the issue. The topics are there. The topics are there. I'm -- it's a question of how do we structure it, how do we have one three-hour session which is going to cover all of that and not be something which is going all over the place. It's more a question of structuring that we are -- Yes.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, a very simple suggestion would be to simply -- I mean, the success of the main session will be the sum of all those workshops together, they'll all be there at different points in that main session. I would ask, then, to list one or two or three key issues or questions that I would like to see as part of the structure of the session and then to make a short list of the issues or questions they would like to see addressed and maybe by means of a teleconference before the session or whatever and simply to take their views on issues of common certain for that common main session. So reaching out to them really and having a bit of preparation beforehand and deciding upon, I don't know, three key questions to structure the question or five, depending on how you see it.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>> LISA HORNER: Lisa Horner from the dynamic coalition and also from Global Partners.
I'd agree with what Lee just said. I think it's -- I think we don't need to treat all three issues together again. We -- the discussion last year was very clear. I think an outcome that security, privacy, and openness aren't mutually exclusive, that they are very much combined. You don't have to necessarily choose one or the other. So I would urge us all to draw on the discussions from last year and structure this year's theme accordingly. And I personally, to do that, would like to revisit the transcripts from last year but be very -- very much urging us to make progress and link -- link from last year's making progress forwards towards next year's session.
I also think if we take a thematic approach rather than these more broad, broad themes of openness, security, and privacy, then there's less of a danger of missing some other crucial issues.
For example, I think if we just talk about balancing free expression, privacy, and security, the discussions can tend to take quite a negative focus, whereas there's a lot of positive things going on that we can help through Internet governance, creating an open Internet, fostering these spaces for open exchange. So I think if we take a thematic approach that would help. There's quite a few proposals, for example, on Internet intermediary liability. That was a key issue raised in the last open consultations as well. These kinds of issues where I think that there are key things happening that we need to address would be a way forward.
And, finally, I'd like to offer help from the members of the dynamic coalition on Internet rights and principles to help organize this session. We are currently in the final stages of drafting a charter of human rights and principles for the Internet. And this covers a wide range of themes, including expression and privacy, and, obviously, security, and highlighting how we can balance these different social goods and rights in a very positive way. And so we've had a learning session from that, and we're very keen to feed those findings and those learnings into this session.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes, Olga. And then Ayesha.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have the chance to review all the transcripts from Athens to Sharm. And I noticed that when we had openness as a separate issue and security as a separate issue and privacy as a separate issue, the focus was better. When they were all together, one of the subjects, usually security and some aspects of security, like child pornography or things like that, capture all the attention, which is okay, because it's a very relevant point. But in my modest opinion, I think putting all together distracts the attention to other issues which are very important, like openness. So I would suggest to focus them in somehow separate.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Ayesha.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Building on some of the ideas that colleagues have suggested, it might be useful to think about splitting the session into one and a half hours, taking on what Lisa has said about picking certain themes, building on the discussion from last year maybe by looking at two moderators in the beginning who would look at one or two issues that are sort of security/openness tensions to bring out the policy challenges around those particular issues, and then the second half could maybe be security/privacy tensions or choices or challenges.
I was also just going to try to help focus this session by saying I think cloud computing is clearly something that's on the minds of many participants in many different areas. Because we do have an emerging session on cloud computing, it might be helpful to not use cloud computing as one of the main subthemes of this particular session.
Thanks.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Martin.
>>MARTIN BOYLE: Thank you, Chair.
Just trying to build on some of the comments that we've just heard. I must admit, I have a lot of sympathy with the concepts that if you treat all three together and try to balance, you can lead either to a negative focus or that you are just concentrating on rather specialist and very important areas, but you are not really covering the whole range.
And I actually wonder whether part of the problem of that is that you are trying to do the balance rather than say what do the other two -- for example, openness and privacy -- mean when you are trying to address security.
So in other words, do you one issue, and you, in doing that issue, have to identify what the constraints are actually being applied on you.
And if you approach it from that way, there is, perhaps, then, quite an obligation on the people who are running workshops in quite specialized areas to start saying, well, okay, yes, but if we do this, what are the privacy implications of law enforcements? What are the openness implications if you don't get your law enforcement right?
And do it that way round so we don't get ourselves stuck into just really looking at, well, how do we trade one off against the other, but how do we actually achieve outcomes while respecting the other two issues.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Can I -- Yes.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Chair.
On behalf of Brazilian government, I'd like to present one initial comment about the Brazilian experience that we believe is an issue for background for this topic. Brazil is going through a remarkable procedure for establishing of a civil rights basic legal framework for the use of Internet.
Government and academy have launched a collaborative process to try to underline how Brazilian society is willing to structure rights and responsibilities for using the Web as well as providing access and content.
The point is that is important to highlight is that while legislation in a few countries put more emphasis on the control in the Internet with the risk of disregarding privacy and consumer rights, this Brazilian draft view proposition takes an opposite direction, considering Internet access as a civil right, fundamental to the exercise of citizenship, freedom of expression, and access to information.
It's also remarkable the fact that the public consultations have also been made through an online platform. There was a first phrase based on selected topics, society had an open space to expose their opinion principles, and which of these principles should become guidelines for Internet. And now there's a second phrase that's under way that a draft proposition reached and is now admitted to a second round of virtual public debate.
The goal is reaching a final document which will then be submitted to the national Congress.
We believe that with this perspective of putting civil rights together with the question of security is an argument to treat all these three topics together in the main session we are debating.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: I notice that there is, in fact, a workshop on the Brazilian Bill of Rights which Carlos is organizing.
Yes.
>>JOHN CARR: John Carr from the United Kingdom Children's Charities Commission on Internet Safety. So there is at least one voice here to answer the point raised by the opening speaker.
I'd just like to make a brief intervention in relation to this question about children and young people's use of the Internet. And as I think has already been noted by earlier speakers, it does cut across each of these three different headings, but in quite a specific way.
Having said that, there is also now a sufficient critical mass, critical body of actions taking place on all continents, in all parts of the world now, I think to justify having at least one session somewhere in this program, perhaps within -- if we follow this earlier suggestion of splitting this into two, that would allow some kind of review, some kind of stock-taking exercise -- I'm not quite sure how you would describe it -- of what is happening across the world using each of the three headings that we are now addressing.
Whether this is the right place to do it or whether it should be done in some other place, I'm not completely certain. I am not sufficiently familiar with the procedures and processes of the IGF, but I do think there is a good case to be made for doing that.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Yes.
>>SWEDEN: Thank you very much. Johan Hallenborg from the Swedish government. I agree with many of the speakers who said it would be probably quite wise to try to split the session into a few different head -- head parts, and perhaps divide it into two would be a good proposal.
I also agree with the previous speaker here on the stock-taking exercise. I do think that's a good proposal, and I think that's something that we could discuss more.
And finally, I'd just like to lend support to Lisa. And I think that we should embrace the offer to have the dynamic coalition on Internet rights and principles to be involved in the organizing of this main session.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Can I just make a suggestion. It is a difficult session to organize in a manner that allows everybody who wants to speak, has a point of view on this, enough space to have their point of view expressed.
I think one thing we have to be very sure of is that nobody goes away from the end of the session saying that their issue did not get enough ventilation in that process.
I thought that one possible way that we could try -- this is just to move the argument forward. We have an open -- start of the session, a short space where we look at the connection between the issues particularly from the perspective of new things which are changing the terms of the relationship. For instance, cloud computing. It is changing our social networking. It is not -- which is different now than what it was five years ago when we were in that, in the sense that these are new elements which are altering the equation between security, openness, privacy.
And there are several workshops which are dealing with some of these issues, I notice. There are two or three.
But that would be just as an opening.
After that, we then have a session which does not rule out the others, but which looks at it, say from the perspective of security, and then from the perspective of openness and privacy.
In fact, one of my more radical suggestions was going to be that we ask somebody who is deeply committed on openness and privacy to handle the security session, and we ask somebody who is committed on security to handle the openness and privacy session. Get a policeman to handle the openness and privacy session. Say, okay, now, I know your job is to catch criminals, but tell me, how will you protect openness and privacy?
Equally, I would turn to somebody, say you want total freedom of access and openness, et cetera, good. Now you run the session where we are trying to see how we ensure a degree of protection for, say, children, et cetera.
That is just a thought, that we ask the opposite, so to speak, to do the thing.
Whether this will work or whether it will be total chaos, I don't know. But it is just a thought so now let me leave it for your comments.
Yes.
>>LISA HORNER: Thank you, Chairman. I like your innovative suggestions there. And I agree that to a certain extent people do get siloed within their discussion areas. And one of the reasons I like the IGF is it starts to break down those silos.
On the other hand, I would really like to see in this session in a way as not treating these three issues as mutually exclusive.
We can have an open Internet that supports freedom of expression, that supports civil or human rights without -- and -- but that is also secure and, indeed, free expression depends on a secure environment to a certain extent.
So in a way, I would like to find -- I haven't got the answers myself, unfortunately, but I would like to have continued discussions about how we can treat these three issues together. But also, I am very sympathetic to the point that Olga made that it's a shame that we have all of these issues in one session. I know we can't get away from that now, but the list of workshops -- there's a whole list on openness and then another list on privacy and security. It's overwhelmingly, you know, what people seem to want to talk about.
So if we can find a way of examining these issues in their own right, but also emphasizing that they are together, that they are not mutually exclusive, and that what we really should be looking to do is building an Internet that supports all of these fundamental goods.
And so I'd just be wary of treating the issues separately and then looking at tensions. Can we not look at complementarities and take a positive approach?
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: That is with a partly my thought behind the idea that we spend an initial half hour or something on -- not on the individual themes but the cross-cutting issues, particularly how new elements are changing the nature of the equation between these elements.
And that would also be the location for coming out with the sort of thing you come up with, that these are not necessarily tradeoffs. There are also synergies between these, that in some ways an open Internet is more possible if you have clearer arrangements for security, in some ways. Say for security for children.
Yes, Bill.
>>BILL GRAHAM: Thank you, Nitin. I think this is an interesting problem that we face, how we deal with this large topic area where there is obviously a huge amount of interest in organizing workshops and having detailed discussions.
I wonder if it might make sense to rejuggle the overall session, plan a bit, and move this one further back in the schedule, perhaps to the morning of the next day.
And where I'm going with this is, it strikes me that this is one where we could take an approach of capitalizing on the IGF's role of bringing together people who don't ordinarily get together to talk, concentrate the specific issue-related discussions in the workshops before the main session, and then really not have any presentations of any sort in the main session, but really encourage the different perspectives to talk together openly in the main session.
It just seems to me that there's a tremendous opportunity in having the large number of experts available through the workshops in a very open format where they can just talk openly and not split it up into different sessions, not try and structure it excessively, but really try to foster a dialogue.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thanks very much. Mark Carvell from U.K. government.
I agree with that suggestion. I was struck, as I think you noted, Chair, by the large number of workshop proposals. And of course there's no guarantee that the slot for this main session on the Wednesday afternoon will not coincide with workshops going on. I mean, there's going to be a lot of pressure to -- even with merging, to fit workshops in.
So I agree with that suggestion to move this main session further back into the program. And, also, with regard to stock taking, I agree that's very important, but I think that -- and in view of the time being precious for the session, that stock-taking exercise should perhaps be covered off with a document prepared beforehand which can be very quickly sort of introduced in the main session.
So that's my suggestion.
I agree that this is a very wide scope for this main session, and you will have to have some kind of split. But the interaction, through your suggestion of moderators from their own territory moderating another aspect, is a very good device, I think, for establishing the linkages and so on.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: So two, three things that we need to look at. One, the idea is that because there are a large number of workshop proposals under this theme that we swap -- it would have to be swapped between access and diversity and security openness. So instead of this taking place Wednesday afternoon, it would take place Thursday morning. And the Thursday morning's access and diversity session would be in Wednesday afternoon.
I don't think there's anything particularly problematic in this because, timewise, it would be the same. Both would be three-hour sessions so there's no short-changing or anything involved.
But it does mean that it is possible to then have a whole day of seminars on this issue before we have this session.
If you look at the numbers, the sheer number of workshops which are targeted at this session is significantly greater than at any other session.
I thought that this may be a possibility. The sequencing of them will be a small change. Managing critical Internet resources remains where it is, followed by access and diversity, followed by security, openness and privacy, and then we will have Internet governance for development coming afterwards. There is a slight issue there because I remember people thinking that access and diversity and Internet governance for development have a connection which may -- and therefore there was some advantage in keeping them together. There's a bit of an issue -- HMM? Also switch like that.
>>NITIN DESAI: No, it would have to be like this. Wouldn't you want to have access and diversity before Internet governance for development?
Or Markus's suggestion is that we have -- we swap between security, openness and privacy and Internet governance for development.
What it would then mean is the sequence would be critical Internet resources, that remains where it is, followed by Internet governance for development, followed by access and diversity, followed by security, openness and privacy.
That would give even more space for the workshops to be organized for this.
Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Thank you, Nitin.
I think it's a good idea to move the session a little bit further so that the workshops can take place before.
One thing that strikes me is that, at the moment, we are still addressing the openness, security, and privacy at a very general and principles level, which is good and it was necessary to show in the first few years that they are connected.
What I'm missing a little bit in the main sessions is the presentation of policy issues, like what are the challenges we're facing, like concrete cases where there's a tension that has to be addressed.
The workshops have, in the past few years, allowed a certain number of those issues to emerge. For instance, I think we're not at a stage where the issue is should there be something for child protection or for child abusing images. The key policy issue is, for instance, law enforcement cooperation, trans-frontier cooperation in child abuse cases.
If you take social networking or social media, one thing that emerged in the sessions last year was the importance of the terms of service of social media. And so having the topic that emerges as privacy rules in social media terms of service is a policy dimension. How do you define them, how do you elaborate the terms of service?
And likewise, a last topic is intermediary liability for globally hosted content.
I wonder if there were -- there could be a possibility to organize the session a little bit more in connection with the workshops, and asking the workshops to produce such kinds of wordings so that afterwards, people can continue to work on a common formulation. So that there's an awareness.
The main session not being about exchanging views, but about synchronizing people on specific formulations so that when they worked afterwards, when the regional IGFs address the issue, they go one level deeper, not remain at openness and security and privacy, but tackle the different topics to come back the next year.
So basically, the idea would be to have, in the session, in the main session, a certain number of feedbacks from the workshops and a brief discussion around the formulations to see whether there's an agreement on the policy issue formulation.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Let us agree, then that, we will move the session to the second day, and that we will follow Markus's suggestion of essentially swapping between Internet governance for development and security, openness and privacy. So that the sequencing is managing critical Internet resources followed by Internet governance for development, followed by access and diversity, followed by openness, security and privacy.
This will certainly allow a large number of the workshops to take place before the event, and would also then allow the sort of thing which Bertrand was suggesting, which is have a clearer connection between some of the more specific workshops and the session.
I think in terms of the themes, what we decided last time should remain, because I think it's very difficult to re-open all of those things as they have already gone out to people. But what we can do is do a little more work in trying to connection the workshops with the themes. And again, just as Chris is going to do this work in looking at the workshops on the managing critical Internet resources to identify three or four which should feed into the main session, and if you do the same exercise for the much larger number of workshops we have here, covering all of these areas, and say very specifically these are the ones which look promising, and let us work with the people who are organizing these workshops and tell them to organize them in such a way that there is a fairly clear product which can go to the main session from that workshop.
But I think would I leave the description of the main session more or less as we did last time. That will then -- It's not necessary to -- I'm not sure we can put down detailed themes like intermediary liability and so on in that. I know it's an important issue, but I'm not sure that that's the form in which we can formulate it.
Now, this means that between now and when we finish the day after, somebody has to take on this responsibility.
Markus, any -- as the -- Who shall we Shanghai into this?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I just wonder, I see our Swedish colleague talking to Lisa, whether these would not be the ideal people to take on the task, a government representative and a civil society representative.
>>NITIN DESAI: And Olga.
Okay. Can the two or three of you sit down, just have a look at the workshops and come up with a set of suggestions on how one can connect them. We will look at it here.
Yes.
>>ICC: Thank you. Can I just say my colleague Leisyl Franz is on her way from the airport, and if it is possible for her to join that discussion, I think that would be helpful.
>>NITIN DESAI: Let's get a big one, because that's some people are going to do some homework for us so we have something concrete to look at. It's very difficult for us to go through a list of 20 workshops and debate as to which of these connect with what. It's better if somebody does this work, comes up with a set of suggestions, then we can focus only on whether we defer. And if we don't, we just leave it as it is.
So in terms of structuring, the idea is a short, a very short introductory part, which would focus on connections, particularly also the new elements which are changing the connection. And then two sessions. That means two moderators.
Probably, we may -- maybe the first part can be done by the Chair. There will be a Chair besides the moderator, and the first part can be handled by the Chair. And then the Chair turns to two moderators. First I will turn to X and request him or her to focus on the perspective of security. And then after that, turn to Y and say now I would like so-and-so to focus on the issue of openness and privacy.
But the connections will have been talked about a little earlier, and how we do that is also something that we will have to discuss.
How do we get that? Do we just have an open discussion? Do we get somebody who will say something briefly about this?
So let's just give a little thought as to how we do that, the initial -- Because we don't want to lose the notion of issues being connected. Just as in the case we will come back to that when we talk of access and diversity. But to some extent, we should not lose sight of the connections.
Okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: If I may.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think in this particular case, kind of keynote introduction might be beneficial. That somebody who has a broad sense, overview to give this kind of introduction, to bring participants to the same level.
>>NITIN DESAI: And who commands respect as a person who -- from all sides, you see. That is a point.
It has to be somebody who commands the respect, and because of his or her standing in the business, if you like.
So we have to think of an important name, as somebody who does command general respect.
So give a little thought to that. And that's one possibility, that we just have a short 15, 20 minute opening which would focus on the connections.
And then the Chair would turn to moderator A and then moderator B.
That would be one way of handling this. Not a panel, jugs one -- if we can identify a name of somebody who will be able to talk about the connections between these issues and how that connection is evolving and changing with new developments in the Internet.
And let's make an effort at going outside the framework of usual suspects.
Even look for a younger person.
But let's not do it right now. Let the people doing this also give a little thought to this, because it is going to be very difficult if we start -- because it's best if we give a little thought to this. If you have some suggestions, then just pass them on to the people who are doing this and we can come back to.
Okay. Now, next, please.
Well, in a sense, we can go back to Internet governance for development.
Internet governance for development.
.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Just a word on the classification.
We put the workshops where the proponents said they wanted to be. They may not always be comfortable on the respective heading. Some of them also may look in on the capacity building because they wanted to be there. It's not always that coherent.
So you may have to look beyond the heading of Internet Governance for Development to find relevant workshops.
Tow.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
The idea behind this theme was to start focusing on dimensions which, if you like, connect -- I was about to say connect to the real world, which means the world which affects people, in terms of development. And the themes that we have put here were the Internet governance dimensions which impacts the socioeconomic inclusion and sustainability, the MDGs, the question of knowledge bases, access to knowledge, online cultural exchanges. I don't know, would we put governance issues of mobile Internet here?
The relevance of regulatory frameworks and ensuring equality of -- innovation and knowledge economy. It's a bit of a mixed bag of themes, and it's a challenge in some ways as to how this can be handled.
So may I ask -- Yes.
>>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. And good morning to everyone. On behalf of ETNO, we have some general comments for which you will allow us to come back later in the afternoon, but for this specific session and for another session, the "taking stock," we are very skeptic about.
For the internet governance for development, we're afraid that it will be very difficult to distinguish the Internet governance element from ICT for Development.
In addition, the development aspect that we all wanted to be reflected in the overall theme -- and indeed, it is, it is in the overall title of the IGF -- it must be present in all main sessions as cross-cutting. Not in just one specific session.
And bearing these in mind, we can go a little bit deeper, or, further, and by commenting on the proposed subthemes. For example, a discussion on Internet governance which impacts social and economic inclusion, et cetera, could well be discussed under critical Internet resources.
The Millennium Development Goals could well be discussed under "Access and Diversity." And the same applies for creating multilingual knowledge bases and online cultural exchanges. I will not go on, but we really need to understand what the added value of this session should be and why certain topics must be discussed here and not elsewhere.
In other words, we need to draw a clear line. Otherwise, we risk repeating discussions or very general speeches. And we need to avoid what happened during last year during the "WSIS principles" session.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes, I think one thing we have said here is that we do not wish to have a discussion on ICT for development. That is not the role or function of the Internet Governance Forum. There is, after all, a whole WSIS forum which is meeting from today whose job is that.
So we don't want to do that function.
So it's a fair point that what is it that you're going to talk about here which you will not be talking about under "access and diversity," or under "critical Internet resources"?
And I think that's a reasonable question.
And I think to some extent, this session is a bit of an experiment. It is an experiment, but it's also partly a response to concerns that the focus of the forum has been too narrow on the -- on Internet as a piece of infrastructure. And the whole area of capacity-building, it wasn't entirely clear where this was getting handled.
But you are right, there are issues as to what do you talk about here which you can't talk about elsewhere. And what is it that unifies this whole theme?
Now, the person who could convince us about this is unfortunately missing. That's Bill Drake. Because he has been the strong advocate of this. And he has a session here.
I think the first three are not un- -- you know, in a sense, you can say that, yes, there is a reasonable case for having them there, and there may be a certain amount of repetition of discussions, particularly on access and diversity.
What is -- I think something like online cultural exchange, you could say, yes, you could put it under diversity. But I suspect that under diversity, the focus will be very much on things like multilingualism, IDN, et cetera.
Whereas the possibility of the role of the Internet in -- how it goes, is this question a governance issue or is it simply a content issue? Those are fair questions.
And so these are issues which he has raised which we need to respond to.
Olga.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Chair. If I may, I think that having a specific perspective towards development of all the issues that you have mentioned, like access, or multilingualism, or diversity, is relevant, because it's not the same having access projects in -- in one region which is developing than access projects in other that it's already developed. So I support having a special focus on development, which is not the same as ICT for development. We can really manage to have a discussion that will be useful for developing countries.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. So you're saying that this is a session on Internet governance for developing countries? Okay. That's a way of looking at it, which is that the focus of this is to take a cut on the issues which is more relevant for developing countries, where the focus will be much more on issues of capacity-building, Internet governance in a period of rapid expansion and growth, et cetera.
That's one way of looking at it.
Yes.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thanks. Mark Carvell, U.K. government. I wonder if things we have listed under "Access and Diversity" could actually come under this session on development. For example, robustness and resilience of infrastructure, once created, that that is a developing country issue largely, I think. And connectivity costs and regulatory issues to promote the development of the Internet in developing countries, maybe some of those elements we've got under "access and diversity" could actually come under this heading, which I think is a very important heading for the IGF. Its profile needs to be very strong on developmental issues. So maybe some swapping could be undertaken here, as I think has already been suggested in terms of multilingual issues being brought under "access and diversity" rather than "development," and then some of the -- the regulatory and resilience issues that are big issues for developing countries is actually addressed under "development."
So just a thought, if we look at the elements of these interacting themes, but with the intention of making this session on "development" a very substantial one.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Yes.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you, Chair. Just two points.
ICC and the government of Lithuania did a workshop last year on how getting Internet governance right helps to promote social and economic development. And I think one of the things that came out in that discussion was the role of different stakeholders and government political will in making those -- the changes in the environment and the conditions possible to promote that.
So one idea I'm having is maybe to give some thought to how to break the session up in terms of, again, three hours is a very long time, and this topic area risks kind of meandering through a lot of things. So picking up on what others have said in terms of emphasis on issues of concern to developing countries, but also perhaps saying that we're going to discuss X, Y, and Z in the first hour and a half, and P, Q, and R in the next hour and a half would help keep this from going in too many different directions and possibly overflowing into the ICT for development arena.
Thanks.
>>NITIN DESAI: Chris.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Sorry. I just wanted to -- this is not about this topic. I just wanted to say, I've got some input for you on the critical Internet resources workshops, whenever you're ready to take it. I don't want to interfere with this discussion.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think one way that we can still call it the title can remain Internet governance for development, but in one way that we can try and sort of, if you like, wrap our minds around this to see what it really is going to do which is different is to think of it as a session whose focus is going to be on Internet governance and developing countries, to some extent. We could do that.
I think in -- from that perspective, perhaps some of the issues that may well be shifted, as suggested, regulatory issues and frameworks that encourage investments, is -- I'm not sure that this sits comfortably under "access and diversity." It may come here. And remember, now, that this session will come before "access and diversity." So to some extent -- in a sense, it is a session on two things: One, the enabling framework for -- for rapid growth of the Internet. Two, the issues which are most specific in developing countries, for instance, issues of capacity.
The mobile -- the telephone issue is important, because one of the very specific things which does arise is that the use of the Internet in many developing countries is more likely to be through the mobile phone system than through the standard phone. If that is the case, the interface between the Internet management system and the telecom management system becomes far more important.
We are already facing this in India, where the -- the companies which own the licenses for the mobile phones are now becoming a major player in the Internet space, because there are 500 million mobile phones in India, increasing at 20 million a year -- month, but barely the number of computers will be not even a tenth of that.
But these are issues which are a little more specific.
So, to some extent, the way we can do this is to try and focus this session on what are the nature of the governance issues which crop up in the sort of context you have in a developing country, where you are concerned about the -- it will not be easy to keep it completely separate from ICT for development. We will have to live with the fact that some of the discussion will focus on that.
But we should, I think, consciously be aiming at that. And this is where I think we can count on also a strong feed-in from the regional meetings, from the East African regional meeting, the Latin regional meeting, the Caribbean one, the Asian one, now that we're going to have an Asian one, so we can also see how we can feed this in much more strongly into this part. But this is a way we can probably think about this, as that it is a little bit more about issues which are more specific for developing countries. And that, I think, would also respond to a certain political concern, which is, a lot of people who are involved in managing these things in developing countries aren't sure that this is at all relevant for them. And this is one way of saying, "Okay, we are trying to address some concerns which are more specifically addressed to your things."
And then, of course, we would move on to the "access and diversity" session, which would come after this.
This will be the session after "managing critical Internet resources." And, in a sense, it will be a way of drilling down a little bit more into issues which are more developing country-specific.
So we may retain the title as "Internet Governance for Development, but mentally, we think of it as really focusing on concerns which are more specific. Some reshuffling, I think, is desirable.
I do invite suggestions on where is the issue of mobile, Internet on mobiles, best handled, here or under "Access and Diversity" or under critical -- because this is a big issue for developing countries, where this is going to be the big area of growth in Internet, including now voice HTML.
Yes, Bill Graham, and then (saying name).
>>B. GRAHAM: Thank you, Nitin. It's too bad that Fouad and Parminder are not here, because they're --
>>NITIN DESAI: Fouad is here.
>>B. GRAHAM: I'm missing him, then. I'm sorry. I'm not seeing him.
But it strikes me that they were very passionate about this in the last session.
And as I recall the discussion, we were in part going to focus on really a definition of what Internet governance for development might mean. You know, what is it?
But as I listen to the discussion going on here this morning, I wonder if it might be sensible to get a recognized and neutral expert or expert organization on development issues who also is active in the development -- in the governance field and have them do a short, you know, maybe 15-minute tour de table of what are the primary issues facing the developing world where Internet governance is relevant.
And I'm thinking here, for example, of something like the International Development Research Council, who have been very active in IGF since its inception, with a number of partner organizations from the developing world.
So ask them to organize an introductory session and then really focus on the governance issues that are relevant to the major themes being discussed in ICT4D at this point. That might get the ICT4D discussions somewhat more condensed and put them right up-front and also assist the chair or the moderators in focusing on the governance aspects.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: See, the way -- we could certainly do that. I think ICT4D is a possibility, -- Parminder is an example. There are many people we can talk to.
The solid thought I had was we are not going to be talking about e education, but are there governance issues which do impinge on the possibilities of e education?
We are not going to be talking about ee-governance per se, but are there governance issues which do impinge on the possibility of rights of egovernance being more widely used?
Issues of privacy. There is a session, I notice, where somebody has proposed cloud computing for egovernance as one of the themes that is picked up.
I think we can get somewhere with this.
Qusai, you wanted -- now we have our passionate spokesperson present, Fouad. But passion is not enough. I want clarity now. Passion is not enough.
Qusai.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. While we are talking about mobile access and using mobile to access the Internet, accessing through mobiles is not cheap. It's expensive. And there are more taxes and tariffs on mobile access than on fixed lines or some broadband access.
And that doesn't make mobile access to the Internet available for the poor, for the least-income class.
Issues related to data/mobile connectivity is an issue. And I think this is -- should be a topic to be discussed under that frame, not talking about the specific technical details, but talking about approaches or models or ideas.
And there are different classes of access. There is GPRS, there is 3G, there is different segments of access. What of them can be available? What of them are practical?
These are issues that need to be addressed in a mobile environment to the Internet. We cannot consider things like SMS and Internet access. That's not enough tool for someone who's using a mobile.
>>NITIN DESAI: Keep it under the access, but from the perspective of, are you really reaching --
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: That's one aspect. The other aspect is the application itself.
There isn't -- for example, if I'm browsing the Net through a mobile phone, there are different browsers for different mobile sets depending on the capability of that set and what it can offer or something like that. And sometimes these applications are totally proprietary. They wouldn't display equally what we call the WOP-based interface. The capability of the applications and its availability is an issue also for the user of the mobile.
So far, for the least segment, there is the WOP applications. And that is purely text-based and simple.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes, you want to go.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Chair.
I just wanted to come in to support your suggestion of securing inputs into this session from the regional fora. I think that's a very important contributing element to enrich the discussion.
I would suggest that each regional IGF be invited to submit a short paper which then could be collated with the others, each -- the paper setting out key problems, priorities, identified solutions, and general direction of discussion within that regional fora so you get some kind of comparative analysis undertaken.
But consistent with my general feeling that stock-taking of this kind should be in -- as much in documentary form as possible, to save precious time for discussion, so that, as I say, these contributions would be in document form and I think would, in the long term, provide a very valuable set of documents which would evolve and be built on.
And I think the IGF would be very -- would be making a very valuable contribution in that way, and also endorsing this whole networking approach of regional IGFs that many of us do support.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Thank you, Chair.
I'm seeing that now, with -- we've got, again, the regional IGFs; we've got access, we've got development, which have similar problems to the security, which is overlapping themes.
Part of this problem, as you mentioned, is because the workshops are -- proposers decide what section they're proposing their workshop, but we don't have a uniform criterion for which ideas should go in which sessions.
I would actually suggest that someone or a small committee be appointed to go through and actually decide, are these all in the right place, and set up a structure that puts them in the right place, that deals with where -- where should the regional issue be dealt with? Where should access, mobile, and remote -- for instance, I'm bringing this up as remote participation, because remote participation is a cross-cutting issue. But there's one particular area we should deal with it. Should that be development or should that be access?
At some point, remote participation should be a primary issue. And that could be development. But it's not just developing nations right now that are not here because of the ash crisis, because the flights aren't making it. In Mumbai, it was the whole Council of Europe.
Remote participation is something -- So I would put it in access.
But could we have someone go through and actually check and make sure that do we have the issues in the areas they should be in?
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Let me again help.
One, we think of this more as a session that's -- so we've had critical Internet resources. And then we have a session after that which will essentially start to move, connect the critical Internet resources discussion with the subsequent sessions on access and diversity and so on which will come up, and security and openness, which will come up on the next day.
The focus on Internet governance for development would be very much, to a certain extent, on developing countries, but not necessarily just that. It would be as to the first theme of the dimensions which, in fact, are social and economic exclusion and sustainability, is a theme which would cut across. It would apply to all. So we're not going to change the title. We'll leave the title as "Internet governance" in "Development." But simply in terms of identifying people, identifying workshops, we start looking for those.
And I looked down the list. And a significant number of the workshops slated under this head are very developing country-oriented. We're just adding an input from the regional commissions, which will undoubtedly talk about this, the east African one, the Asian one, and the Latin American, and the Caribbean one are bound to talk about this. I'm not sure we can avoid straying into ICT for development. We have never been able to do that. People always refer to it in our discussions. I'm not sure we should be so rigid about it. But nevertheless try and bring people back, saying we are not most concerned with how best to do eeducation. What we are concerned with is, what are the aspects of Internet development which make it easier or more difficult. So that is what we are concerned with. So we are not trying to set a policy for eeducation. That, of course, will be done in -- somewhere appropriate. But what we are concerned with is, is the way in which the Internet is developing making it easier or more difficult? You know. And what are the governance and policy issues which are responsible for that?
That is the way I would frame it.
And what I said with eeducation could apply to ee-health, it could apply to egovernance. It's not that we are trying to come up with templates for this. It's simply asking questions about is there something in the way in which it is developing, something in the governance arrangement, something in the way, for instance, that the TLD domain name system operates which makes it more or less difficult to do this?
And that would then feed in -- yes, it is true, there will be an overlap between what we say here and what we will talk about, particularly under "access and diversity." I think we have to live with that reality. But I do believe that we have to respond more clearly to the concern that it's not entirely clear, is this something that we should be worrying about if we're worried about development? And that's the intention.
The thought -- I think we may have to have a slightly closer look at the subthemes and maybe do some minor reshuffling to it. And there are also larger themes which we have not touched in the IGF. It's a moot question, but whether the way in which the Internet is developing, for instance, affects the world trade regime. But there is -- I notice that somebody has proposed a workshop on this. There's actually a workshop proposed on this.
Now, this is not -- we are not trying to set a policy on trade and Internet, no. That is the responsibility of WTO. But what we are concerned with is the way in which the Internet is developing, does it impinge on, say, for instance, the principles of nondiscrimination, most-favored nation, et cetera, which are the foundation of the global trade regime? Are there issues of competition which arise? Which are new in the Internet.
Remember this, that when it came to crime, we hadn't -- and you talked about intermediary liability, we are struggling with a new class of issues which were not there in earlier times. And that's the purpose behind this session.
Now, I'm not sure how well organized we are for dealing with these types of issues, what is the impact on trade, finance, et cetera. But it would be possible, at least, for us to touch on that at some point.
Fouad.
>>F. BAJWA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to first of all support what you just said. And secondly, I'd like to go back to the foundations of the subject of Internet governance for development.
And that -- the intention is nowhere to exclude the developed countries.
Everyone, both the developing and the developed, have to be involved in this. Because the impact of Internet on all these countries within its varying effects, it's happening and it's there. And it's necessary for us to hear from them, and it's necessary for stakeholders, as they have shared in various open consultations, that the issue of IG and its impact on development, is something which has to be explored. So this is -- Yes, it is relatively very new. And this is one of those sessions which is supposed to, I think, cultivate on its own. It's a starting point. It's where we'll actually come down to finding out how IG is actually impacting these countries socioeconomically. And the example I quoted last time is once again from Davos, that when the United States said that Internet has changed the way education is being imparted in the United States schools. Why? Because kids are coming with smartphones to their schools. And during the lectures, they're communicating with each other. So somehow, the horizontal integration has to be changed to vertical integration, and the Internet has to be included as part of the educational development scene. So this is why -- this is a self-evolving topic, and it's going to bring up more interest from various stakeholders that have not yet expressed themselves. But I think that this session will actually -- it will bring in the trade and finance, it will bring in the climate issue. It will bring in a number of issues. And I think we should see how it evolves itself.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think we may pick up on one theme which Bill suggested of trying to identify perhaps a -- some institution which has been involved in the space of Internet governance and development, like IDRC or IISD or any other that we can -- we can leave -- we can identify that to do a sort of scene-setting exercise, you know, initially.
So then we also find space for inputs from the regional meetings to come into this.
And then we will have to rely on a good moderator to keep the discussion focused on the theme of Internet governance for development rather than something straying off into either application areas or into things which will be discussed in greater depth later, like access.
It will not be possible to avoid it altogether. But we should at least attempt.
Yes, Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Yes, thank you, Chair. We fully support your sum-up of all this, all the contributions.
We just want to express a concern regarding electing an institution who deals with development or Internet governance. I think that we should avoid expressions like "best practices" or trying to teach or capacity, anything.
Maybe the main core of the -- the core of this discussion is real perspective, perspective from developing countries. So maybe if we look for -- maybe instead of -- or together with international -- an institution who deals with international -- development, we should add the perspective from representatives from developing countries. These should be in the side of not only the regional contributions, but also contributions for representatives from developing countries itself.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Sure.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I -- just a word.
In the discussions we had in the IGF context, one institution that coherently made the point that we are not linked up with the development debate was the International Institute for Sustainable Development. We had many contributions from them, both in written form and in oral form, where they pointed to what they considered a weakness of the IGF, that we were somewhat in a vacuum, and they made the point we should try to connect a little bit more with the development discussions.
And I think this particular session provides this opportunity. And I would very much -- yes, it should be driven by developing countries. But it would be good to have some speakers who see it in a slightly broader context. And there the -- I think the IISD was the institution that developed these thoughts furthest.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you. Miguel.
>>CSTD: Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for your good wishes.
I was -- I support what Markus just said about the IISD, the International Institute for Sustainable Development. I will suggest that to elaborate a little bit further and to outreach, for example, through this institution to development -- to the development community so as to shed light on how the links between development and between Internet are taken into account or not taken into account. Because the problem of this issue is that most of the time does not have visibility.
So I think that you need to go -- to outreach to the development community and to sort of have an idea session where you can educate both people in the development community and also in the -- for example, this institution that Markus cited, and to discover where in the field are the real problems on Internet -- with Internet governance for development or the -- the advantages of Internet governance for development.
So I believe that this is also an opportunity to outreach to the development community as a summary.
Thank you.
>>IISD: I'm sorry, I can't find my flag. But I am here, David Souter, representing the International Institute for Sustainable Development today. And I thank Markus Kummer very much for that introduction to what IISD has been trying to do to broaden the range of participation and discussions about the impact of the Internet on society and also Internet governance more generally. And I think certainly IISD would very much welcome the opportunity to participate in discussions in however it would help the IGF to -- essentially to raise the variety of sustainable development questions, social, economic, cultural, and environmental questions, and the impact which Internet developments are having on those.
So I just thought I would intervene briefly to give a positive response to that.
>>NITIN DESAI: Bertrand and then (saying name).
>>FRANCE: I'm sorry to be a little bit of a contrarian here, but I'm still having difficulty -- and I say it very, very sincerely -- to see the connection between Internet governance and development. Internet and development is very, very important topic, but I think that this session should have one major purpose, which is to allow people who do see this connection to try to make the case. And I'm speaking here on a personal behalf. I still have difficulties seeing the real connection between policy decisions on the Internet and development issues.
One thing I could see is the impact of, for instance, copyright protection on accessibility, on scientific research or things like that. But so far -- and apologies for being very straightforward -- I am at pain to really, really see the connection.
So I hope the session -- and it's good that there is a session -- that the session will shed some light on this. But I'm still a little bit at a loss. And I just want to be frank.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Actually, this comes back to the initial discussion, that the topic in itself is very, very new. And when it comes down to actually selecting the speakers, we will have to keep discussions under the umbrella in the context of Internet governance.
We don't want it to slip out or spurt out, because the subject is about Internet governance, specifically about it and how that impacts it. And we have -- the IGC has already a workshop proposed on -- it's a pretty ambitious topic called revolutionary IG ideas that will change the developing world.
So even doing the theme setting for the workshop, this issue came up, how do you keep discussions under the umbrella of Internet governance.
So this is a challenge, but, again, with any new exploration or innovation, this challenge will be there to stick to the topic.
So I think if we have a variety of initial people on the panel -- like, for example, the suggestion from IISD is a very good suggestion. Why? Because a few years back they had a significant amount of input and intervention on the subject of Internet governance and sustainable development.
There was also a global e-conference on the subject and there was a wide variety of participation from developing and developed countries, and there was a significant amount of directions that came out of it, even the subject about youth and I.G. was from that.
So I think the variety of people that are going to go there, not restricting it just to the organizations, keeping it in an open format is definitely going to help cultivate what this field is.
And again, I don't want to make any personal suggestions to the topics. Why? Because it has to be very, very much stakeholder driven. And -- Yes, that's it.
>>NITIN DESAI: One thing that I will tell you, Bertrand, is this, that the issue is not that you can't see the connection. The connection will be there. After all, when you talk of access and diversity, it's connected with development.
When you talk about openness, it's connected with development.
The real issue is not that Internet governance and development connection is not clear. It is there under access and diversity.
The real issue is what is it that you are going to talk about here which will not be covered under access and diversity, which will not be covered under openness.
That is the real challenge, that what is the value that you are adding here.
And I think to some extent, part of the value that we are adding is focus on the way in which these dimensions of access, diversity, openness, how does it affect the possibilities of people being excluded or included in the Internet.
Are there things that you do on access and diversity which are positive or negative?
Now, you could say why don't you talk about it when you talk about access, why are you talking about it here? That is a fair point. And to some extent, in a way this reshuffling has helped, because this then becomes a sort of framing session where you are really talking about these issues a little bit more from the perspective of developing countries, places where things are growing, places where the nature of the user of the Internet is radically different from what it is now.
And that is the sense in which you will probably be adding some value.
But, yes, there is going to be an overlap between this and the subsequent days' discussions on access and diversity and openness particularly.
And that cannot be entirely avoided.
But part of it also is that there is a constituency out there amongst the stakeholders who feel strongly that this is a separate theme. It's not just developing countries. This has been a strong theme of the APC. Karen has frequently argued this, Bill Drake and others have.
So there is a strong constituency out there which feels that they have some aspects which they feel are not adequately covered.
So let's see.
So the important thing is to engage them, and bring them to the table.
Whether the introductory part we do through an institute, whether we do it through an issues paper, let us think about it a little bit more.
We could do it -- There are different ways in which we can handle this.
We may have a commissioned issues paper which would focus the discussions, which may have some merit in the sense that we can make it available in advance, so that people will talk to that rather than just get it at the time they come to the meeting.
But these are some of the things that we could think about.
Yes, Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Chair.
Also, again, we agree. We feel sum up, summarizing, and highlighting the importance of this session, and also, as an answer for the public concern on this issue.
We just want to have a different opinion and disagree on one point, regarding the position of IISD on preparing the first draft for the discussion. Maybe we should look for a new solution or institutions that can make a group together and countries that can make a group together and help to prepare this draft. Otherwise, we can't have the main objective of this -- of this session, that is moving developing countries into a new reflection and perspective from its own process of Internet governance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: I wasn't suggesting any specific institute. These are just examples.
But how we handle it. Do we need something like this or do we just say, okay, session starts. Or do we rely on a moderator to guide the discussion?
So let's give it a little thought. We will come back to this tomorrow as to how we do this.
But I do believe bringing the regional things will help because I'm sure the regional foras will be talking about this.
Waudo, and then Olga.
>>W. SIGANGA: Thank you, Chairman.
One of the founding principles of the Internet governance or Internet Governance Forum is the multistakeholder approach. So I'd like to suggest that when we are talking about Internet governance for development, we try to map that onto the developing countries. Because sometimes -- I am always wary, when we start talking about developing countries, they kind of almost have a life of their own and they become another stakeholder group, and we forget that there are others. The stakeholder groups we talk about Internet governance are also there in the developing countries.
So in terms of organizing this particular session, I would like to suggest that we also make sure that the way it is organized brings out the viewpoints of the different stakeholders groups in the developing countries.
I support the idea of having an organization that can set the stage, but also the viewpoints of all the stakeholder groups should be heard.
So perhaps we could have more than one organization to set that stage. And also in the discussion itself, we make sure that the views of governments, of the private sector, civil society come out clearly.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Olga.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to support Bill Graham's discussion of IDRC making a brief presentation of the subject. And specifically in between the projects that IDRC in financing, there is a very interesting one that is investigating the impact of technology ICTs and poverty. I had a chance to contribute to the Latin American group of investigation, and I think they have groups in Latin America, Asia, Africa. Am I right? I think there are three or four of them. And they have extensive information and collected data about the impact of ICTs and poverty. So I strongly recommend them to make a brief presentation of the issue of the situation.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Good. Fouad has a proposal on revolutionary Internet governance ideas that can help change the world. So we will start with that.
But I was just looking down the list. It's a bit mixed. We will have to have a closer look at this, as to what fits in here. It's partly because I suppose that subject is not well defined.
Okay. So let's leave open the question of how we set the stage for this, because there are some differences of views on how best this is done.
Second, we do -- I think that nobody seems to have disagreed with the idea of bringing the regional inputs in more clearly into the process.
Third, we do try and ensure that we have a process through a moderator, resource persons, et cetera, which reflects all stakeholders' interests.
Fourth, we are focusing here on trying to see what is it that may happen under Internet governance, the way in which Internet resources are managed, which could lead to -- potentially lead to exclusion of people, and this is particularly relevant for developing countries, which would in some ways feed into the discussion on access and diversity and openness on the next day. But there may be some overlap there.
What we do need to do is to look down the list of 16 -- 15 workshops which are listed here under this and see what fits in here, what we have to move somewhere else. And I'm not entirely sure that this is a session where we can have a very clear link between workshops and the session, but there are at least a couple of them where they sound almost exactly the same. One, the Fouad one which I mentioned, the other one on Internet and development.
I have to look at the content of that, as to what they actually intend to do.
There is sustainability, there is one on how green is the Internet cloud which OECD is planning.
There's one more regionally oriented on Internet governance on Africa.
And Bill Drake has something on development approach to Internet names and numbers, which is connected very directly with governance issues.
And there's a general one on Internet governance view through different lenses with emphasis on the lens of social and economic development. George is organizing this.
Okay.
So we have some groups of people who are doing things which will probably help in what Bertrand wanted, which is a clearer understanding of what is it that we are really talking about here.
And maybe we can turn to that, those people, for purposes of presentations. People like George Sadowsky, Bill Drake, Fouad is there, a session from ISOC India which seem to be focused on these issues of Internet governance and development.
So let's leave it at that. And we need to come back and look at -- Chris is not here right now so we can do it after lunch when they as some suggestions on his session. And we still have to look at the access and diversity session.
So let's aim at trying to finish the discussion of the sessions today so that tomorrow we can do the rest of our -- We have several other things to do.
Yes.
>>W. SIGANGA: When are we going to move the workshops to the correct sessions, the ones that are perhaps not --
>>NITIN DESAI: From this session? As you know, in the case of the -- we asked smaller groups to look into the individual workshops, because particularly Internet resource, which -- Why don't you have a look at this session, development session.
>>W. SIGANGA: Already I can see from the titles that there are some here that fit into other sessions rather than here.
>>NITIN DESAI: Can you have a look at that and maybe come back with some -- Because we need to stop now. It's 1:00. So you can come back with some suggestions on these 15 as to how best they are handled; okay?
It.
Okay. So we -- Yes.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Sorry, just a quick comment with regard to climate change.
I hope we don't overlook that.
>>NITIN DESAI: One of the sessions is on.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Okay. Sorry.
>>NITIN DESAI: There is a session, how green is the Internet cloud, policies to enlist the potential of cloud computing and tackling climate change. These days, everything has to be connected with climate change. If you want money, you must connect it with climate change.
I have just received -- I am quite involved, heavily involved in climate change issues. In fact, I am much more involved. I have just received a proposal on girls' education and climate change.
Okay. Thank you very much. We reassemble at 3:00.
Fouad
IGF Consultations
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
10 May 2010
Afternoon Session
3:00 p.m.
[ Gavel. ]
>>NITIN DESAI: Welcome back. We see we have some of the people who were there at the inaugural of the WSIS here, a larger crowd.
Is Chris here? Yeah. Chris. Sorry, we couldn't -- didn't get down to what you were going to propose.
We have -- since he is ready with the proposals on the workshops that we should link more explicitly with the main session on critical Internet resources, why don't we take that up so that we can come to closure on one session where we would have the link, the moderators, and the basic format decided.
So Chris, tell us.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Nitin.
I've got a few suggestions going through the main topics.
So the -- for the main session topic status of IPv6 availability around the world, there is a workshop number 87 which is called "IPv6 around the world." So that would seem to be quite a sensible fit.
Then there's the main session topic "The Internationalization of Critical Internet Resources Management." There's a workshop, number 63, called "Strengthening ccTLDs in Africa," which might be worth considering as tying into that topic.
The importance of new TLDs and IDNs for development, I think you've already mentioned workshop 61, and new gTLDs and IDNs for development. Main session topic, enhanced cooperation, there's a workshop, number 28, priorities for long-term stability of the Internet, which might be a fit there.
Maintaining the open architecture of the Internet. Coincidentally, there's a workshop number 90 called maintaining the open architecture of the Internet. And it might be worth considering merging that one if they're interested, with 79, which is country-code, geographic, and language names in a universal Internet.
And, finally, the main session topic, maintaining Internet services in situations of disaster and crisis, some would say that it's like that all the time, we couldn't find, really, any obvious workshops to tie into that one. But I think if you take the ones that we've mentioned, we've got -- one, two, three, four -- five. So if there were five spots, great. Otherwise, you can maybe lose one and go down to four.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. So the proposal is that the workshops that we may -- it's not as if the others will not be connected, but these are the ones where we make a clear effort to ensure that they're done on the first day so that they can feed into the discussion on managing critical Internet resources on -- which we start with on the second day.
And the proposal is 61, new gTLD and IDNs for development and obstacles.
Second would be strengthening ccTLDs in Africa.
Third would be IPv6 around the world.
The fourth, which would probably be combined, 79 and 90, which is maintaining the open architecture of the Internet, combined with country code, geographic, and language names in a universal Internet.
Fifth will be priorities for the long-term stability of the Internet.
This we should be able to accommodate; right? Mm-hmm.
I think we can accommodate five on the first day. We have, I think, seven slots. So there's -- there isn't a problem of numbers.
Okay. Good. Decided.
Then let's move on to the session that we had not yet touched --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: May I?
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I have been approached, it was not clear to everybody what we are doing here. So maybe we ought to explain it a little bit more in detail. But the basic starting point was, we are doing what we did last September, have an open planning meeting which is a format MAG plus, which involves people who have proposed workshops, where we sit down to discuss the nitty-gritty of each session.
We will not define everything. Presumably, we will not be able to fix the program through the last detail. But, nevertheless, the aim would be at least to have the moderators and to identify the workshops that feed directly into the main sessions, as we did just now with the critical Internet resources, so that at the end of our meeting tomorrow, we could give the go-ahead to some of the workshop organizers -- maybe 20, 25, or so -- which would not necessarily mean that those we have not yet given the green light, that they would not be allowed to hold a workshop, but with those, we might engage more in merger talks, and some of them, we would have to say "no," but this can be an ongoing process after this meeting.
And also, we are revisiting each of these sessions. We're doing a first reading now of the program. But we will go through it once again more in detail. And, hopefully, by the end of tomorrow, we have a fairly clear idea of where we are.
A last word also on the MAG meeting. We are not discussing here what is in the mandate of renewal -- of the renewed mandate of the MAG, that is, to discuss its own functioning and the selection mechanism of its members. The MAG has been asked to do so, and we will start this process on Wednesday. But this is the beginning of a process. And, of course, the MAG will open this discussion, and we will seek the advice of the broader community. And the idea would be, then, to again take this up after the Vilnius meeting, when we have a stock-taking meeting in November. Before, we used to have it in February, but that was roughly two months after the annual meeting. But as the annual meeting is that much earlier, we can do so already in November and then can make proposals. But this is something we will start only on Wednesday, and we will not discuss this here.
So I hope that I have clarified a little bit the proceeding.
And, again, going back to the list of critical Internet resources workshops, so I take it everybody would agree that we tell the organizers of these workshops Chris has just identified that they can go ahead with their project. And we will do the same with the workshops proposed under the other headings, see which ones we can identify workshops that feed indirectly into the relevant main session, and give them the go-ahead.
And if you feel that some of these workshops are maybe not quite good enough, then we can also give them advice on exploring merging with other workshops or also give them advice or proposed panelists for their workshops we have on our list of resource persons. So these are just a few words on the organization of the session.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. So one session is done.
The -- we had started a discussion on the Internet governance for development. And the -- in a way, we have already had a discussion on the fourth session, which is on the security, openness, and privacy. So what I would suggest is that we all -- as far as the discussion of Internet governance for development is concerned, the basic purpose of that was to -- partly to meet with the concern which has been expressed quite frequently in our discussions that we are not focusing enough attention on development, and partly, the logic is to bring the people who have this concern to come and talk at this meeting on what is it that we have to include in the governance agenda which we are not including right now which is directly -- which impinges on development.
Second, there are definitely some issues of capacity-building, et cetera, in developing countries, the conditions under which the way the Internet develops does manage to reach everybody. And that is an aspect that will be dealt with. How we do this? There was some discussion on an opening paper or panel or on who would be -- there were some concerns expressed, particularly on just asking one institute to do it, making sure that voices from developing countries were well reflected in the discussions. And so I -- this is the place -- the point that we had reached.
Waudo is going to look at the workshops and come up with some suggestions on which are the ones which seem to be fairly directly connected with the theme. And we'll give him time. And when he is ready with it, then we'll come back to that and ensure that those workshops have some priority in terms of our allocation of resources.
That brings me to the next session, "access and diversity."
Markus. Can you walk us through that one?
We will take up "access and diversity." This is something we've been discussing quite frequently and one of the big issues here. But let's see -- let me stress here that there will be -- there have to be some minor reshuffling of items between access and diversity and Internet governance for development. We can't change the main headings, because that has already gone out in the invitation and it's too difficult to change that now. But the subheadings, there is potential. We can make -- so we can play around with that.
For instance, the whole question of regulatory issues and frameworks for investments in this area could well be put on the "Internet Governance for Development" rather than under -- just under "Access and Diversity."
But there are other things, for instance, "The Mobile Internet" belongs more under "Access and Diversity" than just under Internet for development. So that little bit of reshuffling we will do.
But besides that, let's -- let me just invite comments on how we handle the access and diversity session.
Markus, would you want to say something.
Okay. In the past, we have again tended to do this in two parts; right?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes.
>>NITIN DESAI: We have tended to do this in two parts, because there's a fairly strong sort of demand for a fuller discussion of multilingualism, IDNs, local language content, access to information, and that class of issues, which has been accommodated by more or less doing it in two parts in the past.
With access, access tends to focus attention very much on costs of access, affordability of access. But that's not the only issue. I hope that there are others, and particularly the emergence of mobile telephony and what it implies. It has huge implications on the way in which the Internet industry is reg- -- is run, which I don't think is being well reflected in the governance discussions.
Let me give an example.
In India, for instance, the Internet exchange point was sta them do come from developing countries, not that that's a drawback, but it's just an observation.
But, also, a general thing is that there seems to be very little overlap between the workshop proposals that have come in and the subjects outlined in the program paper.
Now, that said, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because there are a couple in the diversity and access proposals that are quite interesting there is the one, 114, on digital inclusion, which I think from a developed country perspective makes quite an interesting point on access.
And also the number 49, Internet governance and the wider world, building relationships between Internet governance and other domains seem like an interesting topic.
But to answer your question, I think you can sigh that actually a number of the workshops that are labeled access seem, to me, to be more about diversity. So there does seem to be quite a lot of overlap between these subjects, and it seems appropriate to group them together again this year.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>REMOTE PARTICIPATION WORKING GROUP: I am speaking on behalf of the Remote Participation Working Group, and going to my colleague's comment, if there are -- not only because there might be fewer interests or dynamic and important workshops for access, I am proposing that the remote participation workshop be changed from capacity building to access and be treated as an access issue for better inclusion and more access to all policy processes for people who can't be physically present.
So perhaps remote participation should change from capacity building to the access section.
>>NITIN DESAI: ETNO.
>>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. Yes, we're very skeptic, also, by the small number of workshops proposed under access. We would expect more. Perhaps this is an opportunity, since we will have the IG4D this year to devote more time to the diversity issues, as Emily just said, in this session and deal more with the access in the IG4D so that we don't have an overlap.
What we really want to stress is the need to reduce the number of subthemes, because by no means we can deal with all these subthemes for each theme. And we propose to keep a number of maximum three to four subthemes.
I know that this is going to be difficult. It's just that if we take them to an upper level, we can come down to three to four subthemes for each theme. And not just for the access and diversity theme, but for all themes.
So I think it is important that we try to take them to a higher level, and probably devote more time to diversity this time, on the "access and diversity" session, and more access issues in the IG4D session. We need to see a better linkage between the workshops and the main sessions. And the workshops should be an indication of what people want to discuss. However, this should not mean that the discussion in the main session must be solely driven by the workshops proposed.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes, I think we could -- in a sense, there's an imbalance between the themes that are listed and the workshops. That, in fact, just looking down the thing, there's probably only one that we can clearly classify as a diversity theme. And the rest are all access related.
But workshops, the balance is completely the other way around.
One thing I would suggest is we don't have to have subsubthemes. That also makes the whole thing look much longer. And we can just focus on the subthemes.
Patrik.
>>PATRIK FÄLTSTRÖM: Thank you.
When I was looking at this list, I was also a little bit surprised over not only the low number of workshops under access but I also felt that there were actually a number of the workshops on the critical Internet resources which I felt were sort of matching the subthemes of the access and diversity. Like competition issues are listed under access, but you have openness under critical Internet resources. For example, 90, maintain open architecture over the Internet. And the question is there, of course, is under that under CIR or access?
So it might be the case that some things, it might be hard to say exactly under which of the main themes the workshops are.
So maybe it is the case that in some cases we are to compare things across those main themes.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes. Martin.
>>MARTIN BOYLE: Thank you, Chair. I think I feel a little bit nervous by the idea that you equate access with really sort of development issues, particularly as we have got separately a development line on the agenda.
And I think the reason is that, in my mind, there is a lot of change in the way that you have to present information, how you shape your access to that information, quite simply because you are getting different people who are now coming online. And that isn't just a developing-country problem. That affects almost every country around the world.
It's how do you reach out to the poorest people in your community? How do you manage to prepare the information in a way that they can understand it? And how can you protect those people from the things that they don't understand and that are quite a threat to them?
So I think the comment that there are related issues under some of the other themes doesn't actually surprise me very much. It doesn't surprise me because these are actually the things that will be barriers to the poorest people, to the least educated people, from getting them online so that they can draw the benefits of the Internet.
So I think that certainly there is a point on access. It shouldn't be confused with development, but perhaps there is something where there needs to be a bit of bridge building between this particular heading and some of the other headlines.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. I think -- Yes.
>>ETNO: Yes, I'm sorry for coming back, but as a way out, maybe we can focus one of the sessions into the supply side and the other session on the demand side.
I don't know if that is clear. Because as we said that we have two sessions, "access and diversity," and we also have "IG4D." Maybe a discussion towards supply and demand could also work as a cutting line between the two sessions. Because, honestly, I wouldn't like IG4D to be just for developing countries. The issues that - as you also mentioned - that can be discussed there, also effect developed countries.
So I understand that issues about developing countries could be another cutting line, but I'm just saying that the issues are not just for developing countries.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes, of course. Or certainly not in the access and diversity section.
>>ETNO: Yeah.
>>NITIN DESAI: And even the previous one, we are not changing the name. We are still calling it Internet governance for development. And we are not changing it to -- But we were trying to get to grips with what is so special about that. And how does it defer? Why is it a cross-cutting issue? And what can we talk about there. So it's only from that perspective.
I think listening to -- my feeling is that maybe we need to focus a little more attention on -- you see, let me mention one thing. In every IGF defers a little depending on the participation. You are bound to have a lot of discussion on access issues when we met in Brazil or India, Egypt.
Now we are meeting in Lithuania, and out of the thousand, 1,500 people there, my guess is a very large proportion of the people present there will be of European background, or something like this. It is inevitable. There has always been a little bit of a regional flavor because of the logistics of getting to the meeting.
So we should keep that in mind in terms of what would interest people.
So my feeling is let's play up the diversity dimension a little bit more. That's where most of the workshops seem to be heading. And maybe we can, in our listing of subthemes under access and diversity, where we have just mentioned multilingualism, we can bring in -- for instance, I notice there is a workshop on migrants. There has of course been the longstanding work on disability, Internet access for the disabled, which has been a major area of work in IGF. It's one of the areas that's probably had some important impact, also.
So perhaps we can mention a bit more than that. Abbreviate the discussions on the access side, certainly by not necessarily listing the subsubthemes.
Yes, Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Thank you, Nitin.
I think you are pointing to an important element regarding the participation, given the geographical location.
I think for a long period of time, we have focused the notion of access around access to the infrastructure. Basically, access to the Internet. And there's the challenge of enabling environments, the legal frameworks, the infrastructure and so on.
I wonder whether in Vilnius there couldn't be a possibility to give a little bit more emphasis to the notion of access to content.
For instance, there are issues that are emerging more and more because of the existence of global hosting platforms that are welcoming user generated content. And this is a challenge connected to diversity as well, because, surprisingly enough, or paradoxically enough, the more people the Internet growth brings in cyberspace, the more diverse they are in terms of not only their values, their political environment, and their respective notions.
So we are facing now problems especially with hosting platforms and social media.
In the question of access to the content and possible blocking or preventing access to specific platforms because of some type of content -- that is, on those platforms -- there have been cases where access to YouTube in general has been shut because of one specific critical content that was on it.
I wonder whether this session couldn't be devoting a little bit more attention to the notion of access to content, knowing that we have a very difficult challenge, which is that when we consider the famous Article 29 of the declaration -- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it allows for limitations to the freedoms, provided that they are decided by law, and, second, that they are implemented to guarantee the exercise of freedoms by others.
And I wonder whether a portion of this topic could not be devoted to the conditions under which some restrictions to access to platforms or to specific content are legitimate, not legitimate, justified by law or justified by the objective. Maybe on a certain number of case studies. Because it's a problem that companies are facing, and that governments are facing because of the overlap of jurisdiction and the fact that people are located in another country post something about a given country. And it's very hard today to articulate those mechanisms.
So basically, focusing maybe a little bit more on access to content, and not only access to the infrastructure.
>>NITIN DESAI: How would this tie in with the discussions on -- under the openness session on access to knowledge, et cetera?
>>FRANCE: If I may. I expected you to make the comment, and you are absolutely right. The thing is, as the IGF evolves, we have seen that actually a lot of issues are coming into the secrecy, privacy and openness topic. And we obviously do not have the opportunity to deal with all of them in the small time scale. I think the access issue has evolved. A certain number of issues relating to access to the infrastructure have not been solved but the main parameter terse of the problem are being addressed there, are being addressed already.
And so the benefit or the added value of the IGF at the global level is maybe to highlight more clearly some of the challenges that access to content or access to information can be.
It can be access to scientific information, which is one of the topics of the Geneva lines of action, which has not been given a lot of attention today.
I think instead of trying to fill the session on access and diversity with traditional content, we can see how access has different meanings today.
>>ETNO: Yes, thank you, Chair, and I really don't want to make this a Ping-Pong conversation. I completely agree with what Bertand says. Working for a telecom company and representing here telecom companies that are the providers of networks, access is, of course, our main business. And we want to do investments, but there must be something to justify the investment. So access to content very well links with access to infrastructure. It's what I was trying to tell you, not with good words, previously about demand and supply.
So this discussion really fits into this session, and maybe it is a way to clear certain things; that we should have certain discussions about access to knowledge in the "access" session, because access should not be just about infrastructure.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Ravi.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chairman. Continuing from where Bernard mentioned about access to content, I would also like to hop on this theme of infrastructure access and, thereby, access to content in the context of sharing of resources of a scientific nature.
I am saying this because we do have a number of collaborations and cooperations which are clear across nations. Specifically with the E.U., India has TN network which has recently been set up which started out as 45 MBPS and today, in the last three years, we have moved up to about 1 GBPS.
So I think these are very positive developments, and it's a collaboration where the sun experiments and the atomic and IG establishment in India, they share a lot of data.
So I think it opens up a dialogue process, if I can say so. And when we are saying Internet governance for development, I think these are issues which need to get into the dialogue process.
>>NITIN DESAI: I am trying to see how to structure this issue of access.
One of the things, I was recently involved with some major European newspaper, and their big concern is what is happening to them. And the whole notion of paid content and paid access. And how would that work when I have Web 2?
If I put a story out in my newspaper, somewhere in Web 2, someone is free to put that story up, how will I ever charge for that story on my site? And they really are seriously worried.
They don't think an advertisement-based model is going to be viable. And there are real questions being asked as to whether there is an underlying business model which could justify the investments that your people are making, both on the infrastructure side as well as the content side.
And there is a certain amount of concern, I have noticed, amongst -- more amongst media companies. It has always been there amongst -- on the music side, and now increasingly on the television and film side, also, on what are the implications of this for their business model as it exists today.
And that aspect of the challenge that the Internet has posed to classical business models is something which does not fall neatly into the mandate either of the ICT for development, which is being handled across the street, or of Internet governance. It's slipping between the cracks.
Perhaps the notion of the wider issues of access, which Bertrand was talking about, those which go beyond affordability of connections, et cetera, into the conditions governing access may be a dimension which we could pick up and may resonate with what may well be an audience which is largely European.
Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Sorry to chime in again, but I'd like to give three very quick examples.
>>NITIN DESAI: Mm-hmm.
>>FRANCE: Last week, there were elections in England, and there were TV -- televised debates between the three candidates. Somebody told me that, actually, if were you in France, you could not access the BBC broadcast on the Web of those debates, which raises the question of the reintroduction of the physical frontiers in terms of the accessibility. So that's example one.
Second example was given at the EuroDIG. I didn't know that actually Apple for access -- for allowing access on the iPhone to some newspapers, I heard from Germany or from England, negotiated that those newspapers who have a very sexy third page picture skip and remove this third-page picture from the content that is accessible on the Apple iPhone. This is going to be incredibly important with the growth of the iPad which raises the question of the role of gatekeepers. Apple with the iPhone and the iPad is becoming a platform gatekeeper. What is their role in terms of access to content? Is it completely transparent or not? This is the second example.
And the third example is we see the emergence of something which is called the real-time Web. Posting, even Facebook and the rest, is not traditional but relatively classical posting.
What happens with Twitter is a question of speed, like things that are produced very quickly, that circulate virally and have the capacity to spread extremely rapidly, which has a lot of benefits, can have a lot of drawbacks if it is a rumor that is a wrong rumor.
How the governance mechanism for those tools, how should they be envisaged?
There are certain governments who are concerned about the kind of thing that can circulate. Others will see it as a very positive development.
But these are three examples where the notion of access to content can be either controlled by a company for some good reasons, but with certain consequences, where the reintroduction of physical boundaries, geographical boundaries, is actually preventing access and where the emergence of new tools is raising new questions regarding the regulation of those exchanges.
So these are three examples that I wanted to share to illustrate what I meant by access to content.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes, Ginger.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Thank you, Chair. I have a remote comment from Rafid Fatani in the United Kingdom who asks in response, should we not be seriously distinguishing between access to content issues and access as an infrastructure issue?
So he is confirming again that these two issues should be separated.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Now, clearly I get a feeling that it's possible there will be a fair amount of interest in access to content class of issues. How much of that gets discussed under openness, how much gets discussed here is under discussion.
But the extent to which the controls on access are at the infrastructure end, then probably they get discussed here. Whereas there, the discussion might be more on the issues of censorship and so on. But if they are of the sort you mentioned, where the iPhone, the iPad part that you mentioned, I don't know how we can handle this. But it seems to me that we cannot completely rule out discussion of the classical issues of connectivity, of course, and affordability, which we have traditionally looked at under access.
Perhaps more of that may get covered under the Internet governance for development. A little more can be pushed into that window. And we focus the discussion here slightly more on those dimensions of access where access to knowledge and information gets constrained by the nature of the business models. In essence, it's really the business models. But as they get reflected in the infrastructure of the Internet.
We're not really concerned with, after all, who are we to say whether a person should or should not charge for the information they put on the net. It's their lookout.
But what you are talking of is infrastructure linked limits on access.
Yes, Stephen.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Thank you, Chair. First of all, I apologize for coming in late this morning. I lost my luggage. My Wi-Fi doesn't work. I am not being anti-social. I am trying to find a broadband connection here, so I just want to say that.
Just very, very briefly, I think I do echo the summary as stipulated by the chairman in the sense that, first of all, all these major sessions, topics, they are all cross-cutting. Somehow, they are interrelated, they are interconnected. Sometimes you can't speak about one without the other, but it's where the emphasis is. And so, therefore, as far as access and diversity, use the word traditional or classical access, in terms of infrastructure. In every one of these sessions, I know that we do actually have an abstract or a descriptive, a descriptive paragraph that will introduce this topic for IGF. So I think that distinction or the priority or the major focus in terms of access, of infrastructure, classical sense, could be retained, emphasized in the access and diversity, whereby the access to content, restriction thereof, I think, as was mentioned, there are two other areas like including openness, security, and privacy. The other one is a development issue.
So I think if we can somehow ensure the focus are there and making known through the descriptive paragraph of the sessions such that it would allow both the moderator as well as the participants in the open dialogue to focus on these issues.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Then let's work on this. We still then have two different -- we will have two moderators. One, let us look for a moderator who can handle the access side, but keeping in mind the types of issues about access to content, et cetera, which have been mentioned by Bertrand. And, two, we would have a moderator who will handle the diversity side. The diversity side is bound to have a strong element of multilingualism. In a U.N. meeting, this is unavoidable, and necessary, also, because of the multiplicity of languages, and it is a big issue.
So let's, then, look for two moderators. And maybe the moderator that we would look for on access would be somebody who may be a little more sensitive to the types of issues about the conditions governing access which were mentioned by Bertrand. Infrastructure linked conditions governing access which were mentioned by Bertrand.
And on diversity, we will probably have somebody who is more going to focus more attention on, I suppose, multilingualism. Though there are other dimensions. I was quite intrigued by the workshop on Internet for migrants. And the possibility that Internet provides of providing migrants who have a different culture, different language, with much more by way of media and content than may be possible under classical media, television and so on.
I see that there is a workshop on that.
Whatever it is -- Yes?
>>FRANCE: To --
>>NITIN DESAI: Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Thanks, Nitin.
To add one element on the diversity issue, it is true that we have focused mostly on the multilingualism.
I think the example, for instance, of the new gTLD program in ICANN, of course it looks like it is an Internet critical resources topic. But the reality is that there has been a lot of discussions within ICANN on the idea of developing the cultural and linguistic TLDs. And for those who are not familiar, there's this example of dot cat for the Catalan language.
The lessons that are drawn from the example of the existence of a TLD, a top-level domain, for the Catalan language, the lessons are that in a couple -- in a few years, in four, five years, it has tremendously increased the amount of content in Catalan on the Internet.
And I wonder whether in the case of diversity it wouldn't be possible to address also this issue, like what can the introduction of linguistic and cultural TLDs produce for the -- the diversity of languages in the Internet?
And the second element is that here again there is a question regarding the acceptable diversity of ideas on the Internet. And I give you a concrete example. France has very strong rules regarding hate speech. The United States has very strong rules preventing any restriction to speech.
How do you handle the diversity of legal regimes regarding specific contents?
This is also an issue of diversity. And once again, the larger the number of people on the Internet, the more diverse their respective value systems there are, and hence the more policy problems emerge in terms of what is accessible, what should be prevented or not.
So I think the diversity that I mentioned is not only multilingualism. I don't exactly know how to push this idea forward. But this notion of the diversity of value systems is -- is a very delicate element. And we shouldn't shy away from addressing delicate topics. It's a common concern for every actor.
>>NITIN DESAI: There are a couple of workshops which seem to be addressing at least the first of the issues you mention.
One of them is reversing language shift through the Internet, which is clearly addressing partly the question that you're -- and the other is a multilingual Internet in the light of sovereign rights of language communities.
And to some extent -- The second question that you raise is more complex. I'm not sure whether there's anything here which would handle that.
Okay. Anybody else?
Ah, Mr. Karklins, welcome, in your new capacity not yet. One has still a month to go.
Well, congratulations from all of us. The -- I have Olga.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just to mention about a workshop that I have proposed. It addressed the issue of gTLDs in other languages, although from the Latin languages perspective. And we have included in the panel the case of dot cat and other things that we have seen in Latin America and in other Latin-speaking countries.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Good. So then we are -- let us then settle on the idea of two moderators. The first one focus -- somebody who will be able to focus attention on the class of issues which Bertrand has raised. We will understand that there will be a certain attempt to try and focus the discussion on the infrastructure dimension of access, affordability, et cetera, and the Internet governance for development, which would be on the previous day.
On the diversity issue, we may look -- well, it is inevitable that a lot of the discussion will be on multilingualism. But the types of issues of culture diversity and its implications for Internet governance which Bertrand mentioned may also come up.
There are a couple of workshops which are listed here.
Again here we need somebody to look -- who can look through the workshops and suggest which are the ones that we can identify as workshops which are reasonably directly connected with our main session agenda and would therefore have to be accommodated before the main session.
Who will take on this task of looking at the diversity workshops, please, before tomorrow? Olga, since you have --
Well, disability issues are also there. One of the workshops -- Olga, since you are doing one of the -- why don't you have a look at the workshops on the diversity, and see which are the ones which will fit in well with the sort of orientation for the access and diversity session that we've talked of. Okay?
Names for moderators, this is a difficult area, this is a -- particularly on the first issue of access. It's a new type of orientation we are trying. And I would like you to give some thought to who we could invite as a moderator for that.
I don't think diversity will pose a big issue, because so many people have been involved in this, I'm sure we will be able to find somebody who can handle that quite readily. But please give some thought to who could be the moderator for that.
Good. Let's move on. So we have done the four big sessions. Managing critical Internet resources; Internet governance for development; access and diversity; and security, openness, and privacy.
We had a discussion on the first day's sessions. And that brings me to the final day, where we have a session on taking stock. That, as we discussed last time, if you remember, would be, in a sense, our -- our review of what has this process done over the past five years. How has the Internet changed over these years. To what extent have we been able to respond to -- in a sense, to do a stock-taking of where were we on Internet governance five years ago; where are we now; what are the changes which have taken place; what are the changes which still have to take place. It's, in a sense, a back-to-office type report. You gave us five years to do something. This is what we've done for five years. These are the pluses. These are the things which still remain to be done.
Okay?
>>GINGER PAQUE: Thank you, Chair, for these are several remote interventions.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>GINGER PAQUE: I'm going to ask that I backtrack, if I should wait, let me know. Since we're going to stock-taking, which really is a wrap-up, I have things that didn't come up yet which are on capacity-building. We have Thomas Lowenhaupt, who has proposed a capacity-building workshop on city TLDs and is -- would like to confirm that that will work, and would also like to make a serious call for other speakers to join them on this. They have four issues that they would like to address. And so I can go quickly.
Experiences from country code and sponsored TLDs; propose a process for engaging expertise from a variety of disciplines, for example, city planning, economics, political science, sociology and software engineering; to prepare a primer for cities developing these critical Internet resources; to review existing structures for sharing best practices in city administration and governance; and, finally, to explore governance options for city TLDs.
And he -- they are making a serious call for collaboration. If there are people in the resource list or anyone that knows of anyone, would they please get in touch with him. That's workshop 50.
Then also I have several -- and have repeated requests for intervention from youth, who were unable to have -- although I see we do have our colleague from Finland who -- and we do have several young people on the secretariat as fellows. But in both cases, they would like to make sure that youth are invited to join the panels. That if there is an aspect for youth that they can address on your panel or on any of the workshops, please include someone.
We have several projects. One is with Rafik Dammak with the dynamic coalition for youth.
Would you like to make an intervention here, please.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes.
>>BARRACK OTIENO: Sorry. I'm just trying to get my notes right.
>>GINGER PAQUE: I put him on the spot.
>>BARRACK OTIENO: Can I come back in a short while, once I'm ready?
>>NITIN DESAI: Stephen.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Thank you, Chair.
Since, as I said, because my luggage and all that, I was late, and I just -- I just took note of the -- the current progress in terms of our discussion today that we have already covered two days. And allow me to very, very briefly maybe do a bit of backtracking.
It's particularly to do with the fact that this IGF this year -- I was looking at the working draft program -- was very strong focus on youth, and it has also been repeatedly mentioned in this particular open forum.
I just want to mention that for the first time last year for IGF, we -- in Hong Kong -- I'm now sort of speaking on behalf of Hong Kong -- we have youth, university students, and I think some high school students as well, participating in IGF. And they were very impressed. And also our government chief information officer was here. And he was really impressed with IGF. That was his first time here.
So back in Hong Kong, we are now organizing some IGF-related activities. But I want to focus on the youth.
There are two workshops -- one particular workshop is actually preparing Asian youth for the digital age. It's organized by Net Mission, which is actually a group of young youths in Hong Kong who are very Internet-savvy, who understand the issues. So I hope, as this is the first workshop, and with that kind of title, I hope it would be well received in terms of selection and organization.
The other one for Hong Kong is I thought it was an interesting one, related to youth, but it's more the other side of the coin. It's parenting digital natives in the Internet age. All right, we keep on talking about youth. But please also have some sympathy on the parents, you know, all right, in terms of how do they react to, how do they monitor -- not monitor -- how do they deal with children who are much more Internet-savvy than they are, who can access information faster than the parents have. So the parents are really at a loss. I'm sure it's in general, this is a general issue. I mean, parents usually are lost enough. But now with the Internet, it's even worse, all right?
So we thought it would be good. And we are now planning some seminars in Hong Kong and looking at this, the parenting of digital natives, and thought it would be a very interesting one. It's sort of complementary to the preparing youth for the digital age.
So I just want to mention that.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: I saw that. It struck me, the title, "Parenting Digital Natives."
Okay. So can we come to closure on the whole access? The whole dimension of youth, and bringing -- yeah, I think we should be very -- we should certainly make an effort at identifying people who can participate. And certainly that's one balance we should be looking for. We always look for regional balance and gender balance. And maybe one of the things that we should look for more consciously is an age balance.
And that I think we should certainly try and do.
The only problem is that we are to some extent restricted to the people who can come there on their own. Because we don't have resources to bring people to the meeting. And that becomes the constraint more than anything else, that unless young people are included as part of the delegations which either corporations, countries, or NGOs bring, it's very difficult to -- Then what happens is, you -- somebody gives you a grant, and you bring what I describe as professional young people, you know, and we do some very formalistic thing with them.
So the real question here is to encourage everybody who comes there from an organization, whether it's an NGO, whether it is a government department, whether it is a corporation, to see whether they can make an effort to include in their group some young people so that we have a body of people available there.
We will certainly -- I notice, for instance, in Egypt, we had a lot of young Egyptians who were there. When we were in India, there were a lot of young Indians. And no doubt there will be lots of young people from Lithuania who will be there. But if we want somebody which covers young people from all parts of the world, then I would say that we would have to make this request. And through you, I make this request to everybody, saying, please encourage governments, corporations, NGOs, civil society organizations, and the Internet organizations, to include young people in their group which they send. Because otherwise, we will not be able to do this. You will be very restricted in our choice.
This is the practical aspect. Because we don't have money to just bring people to this process. And youth is a relative term. One thing I can say is I am not youth. But almost anybody else in this room is compared to me. So --
>>GINGER PAQUE: I'm sorry. I just -- I learned a new phrase, and it's that we have a lot of accumulated youth.
[ Laughter ]
>>NITIN DESAI: Anything else now? Then let's take this taking stock -- yes, ETNO. Sorry, I didn't notice you.
>>ETNO: It's all right, Chair. Thank you. I'm not going to say something different.
I completely agree with you. And, as a matter of fact, this was one of the more general comments that we didn't have a chance to express this morning. But we really want to -- we really believe that the engagement of the youth must be encouraged.
We believe that the proper way is through mainstreaming the main sessions and the workshops. But this effort must be extended to all groups as well, not just the youth. Bearing in mind that we have -- we want the right balance of all ages, all regions, and all views.
You said -- you mentioned sponsoring -- each government or each organization to sponsor a young person.
We will say that remote participation can also be another solution. And it can help greatly in this direction. We expect that remote participation will be even more improved this year. And we really hope that it will be possible to have one person responsible for moderating, or at least monitoring remote participation, for each main session and workshop.
And as Ginger (Paque) said before, we want remote participation, not just remote observation. So we need to advertise the IGF. And if we have a remote moderator, this can be a great way of improving democracy in the participation process.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Okay. So on the taking stock, how will we plan -- how were we planning to handle the session? Markus. Modalities?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We haven't really talked about that much in detail. But it will be clearly different from the "Setting the Scene" session, which will be more looking what happened in the IGF context.
This session is supposed to look more at the broader architecture of Internet governance. Have there been changes since Athens? And what were the changes?
So, presumably, I think the best way would be through a multistakeholder panel.
We haven't made much use of panels in the other session. But here I think it would be a possible approach to give also the institutions a possibility to explain if there has been any change and what were the changes with regard to Internet governance.
>>NITIN DESAI: Isn't this also the space where we (inaudible) fairly intensively with the people involved in Internet management? Also?
'Cause in some ways, this is -- we were given a five-year term. And this is, in a sense, a way of coming to closure on the five-year term. This is -- regardless of what happens. Because, in a sense, any continuation of the IGF is a new IGF with a new mandate which I'm sure will not necessarily be (inaudible) as the mandate that we had.
So we should treat this as something which engages all of the people who have been in some way involved in the IGF. And that includes, of course, the stakeholders and the Internet community.
Sorry.
It includes the stakeholders and the Internet -- stakeholders and the Internet community probably as a panel. Do we see a moderator? How do we see this? Because this is -- this session is a sensitive one, because people will defer in their assessments. They will defer in their assessments of what has happened to Internet governance over the past five years. To what extent has it moved in the directions which were indicated in Tunis.
So we have to be sensitive to this and ensure that we do not suppress any voice, that all voices should be heard.
Do we do this by an open -- How do we do this? Let's give a little thought to this.
Stephen.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Okay. I'm still -- I'm based on the program, the latest program paper, whereby it's mentioned three bullet points about taking stock of Internet governance and a way forward.
Looking at where we were five years ago, and the main theme of where we are now, how have we advanced in terms of IG over the five years, and where we were five years ago and where are we now.
Now, am I correct to say or assume that the report to the Secretary-General of the U.N. this summer or sometime is actually a distillation of what happened in the last five years IGF, what have we accomplished, what we have -- may be following shortly. Now, all of these are consolidated from people's experiences, understanding, from their perspective. And I'm sure this report would actually -- given my understanding, the U.N. is always -- you know, multistakeholder -- multiperspective, multiple perceptions, and then have them consolidated and then, obviously, come out with sort of objective consolidation. And maybe some subjective recommendations. Okay?
So shouldn't that this report actually would be a -- kind of a template or -- sorry, a backdrop for this particular session, then come -- because then we'll have an understanding of what people have been saying, what has been distilled, what we have accomplished, what have we fallen short of kind of as a background. And then we then go into the discussion.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: A little difference, though. The Secretary-General's report is on the IGF. This is a session about Internet governance in its totality on the substantive themes. So the Secretary-General's report is not going to go into where were we on Internet security five years ago; where are we now. It's not going to go into that type of question. It will be concerned only with the IGF and the functioning of the IGF and the multistakeholder Advisory Group.
Whereas taking stock is a session more about the entire landscape on Internet governance. That's the difference, Stephen.
Yeah, Stephen, and then Jeanette.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Sorry. Without -- while I do agree with you, but the future of IGF and the recommendation thereby how IGF will be continued and so forth is actually based on people's input, multistakeholders, of how IGF as a forum has fared.
Now, you can't tell how it's fared without looking at what we have done, what we have accomplished, even though we might not go into that level of details. But the whole point is, we have a three-hour session. All right? And so, therefore, those highlights I would like to believe would be a very good opening or a backdrop or background for discussion that takes place.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Jeanette.
>>JEANETTE HOFMANN: Thank you, Chair. And sorry for being late.
I got stuck in Heathrow.
I've been reading through the transcripts of the main session, so at least some of the main sessions that we've had over the last years. And one of the metaphors that was used again and again and again concerns the big elephant in the room. And the big elephant in the room obviously is the unilateral control of the root zone file. And I think it is important to address this big elephant in the stock-taking session, but at the same time, we should make sure that it doesn't dominate the whole session.
So the question seems to be how can this be addressed in a constructive manner without taking so much space that other issues cannot be addressed.
Perhaps one way to deal with that would be to ask whether we discuss this big elephant in the room still in the very same manner we did five years ago. Perhaps there is a change.
And that brings me to a remark of Emily that she did in Hyderabad. She said that what the IGF might have created is an environment where it's not dangerous anymore to talk about this, and that part of the heat that we sort of had -- that we brought over from WSIS to the IGF is gone, so that there is a more perhaps pragmatic way of discussing this.
So that would be perhaps an angle that we could use. It's just an example of how we could address this if we would find people who could bring this forth, without, of course, eliminating different views on this.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: I'm -- I understand the youth are ready for us. Barrack.
>>BARRACK OTIENO: Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm reading on behalf of a fairly young person, a remote participant. I am the youth -- I am the youth coordinator of the HUWY. You can check http huwy.eu e-participation project.
Over the summer, thousands of young people in four countries will discuss Internet governance in their own corners of cyberspace. Then they will tell policymakers what they should do about the Internet. That is, the young people will educate politicians, officials, and lawyers, not the other way around, through the HUWY Web sites.
By the time IGF happens, there will be lots of young people's reports from which the IGF participants can learn, based on the experiences of the people who have grown up with the Internet. It would be great if this could be included in some of the workshops. For example, we might have a session where policymakers read and comment on these reports, after which, some of the young people who have discussed Internet governance could award prizes for the policymakers who best understood the needs, values and experiences of young people. We were too busy setting up the project in four countries to submit a workshop proposal before 14 April and it isn't quite the same as a standard workshop, but maybe the people at the planning meeting might see a way of integrating these electronic policy-making process in their face-to-face one.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Yes.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Council of Europe, Lee Hibbard.
Just a point about taking stock. One of the things I think it will be quite important to take stock of is what has emanated from the IGF process, and that is many regional platforms and many national IGF platforms.
So I would be very interested to know more about, you know, how they come about, what triggered them, of course. The IGF process triggered that. And to sort of use as part of the evaluation of what happened and why, and what that is producing as a knock-on effect, as a secondary effect in regions and in national spaces.
So I would really like to see a lot of dialogue and discussion with those regional and national platforms in that session.
I just -- one other point about youth. There is going to be a world summit in June in Sweden, in Karlstad in June, on a World Summit for Media and Children and Youth which is going to bring together over a thousand or 2,000 people, something in that region, from across the world to discuss media, and I think that means new media, online media, with regard to youth. I think that's a great place to take youth and try to bring them into the IGF.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. ETNO.
>>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. We said this morning that ETNO is very skeptic about two sessions. One is IG4D, and the other one is this one, "taking stock."
As regards the taking stock on Internet governance and the way forward, our concerns start from the timing of this session that concerns us. When we will be expecting decisions about the continuation of the IGF, we certainly do not want this session to become an opportunity for the evaluation of the IGF in respect of its continuation and the decisions to be taken in New York.
For us it is clear that the formal consultation ended in Sharm, and we do not want a re-opening of this issue. That is why we believe we need more structure for this session if we are going to discuss where we were five years ago and where we are now.
By the way we believe such a discussion but under a different title would have been an excellent theme for the beginning of the next cycle of the IGF, which we hope will be the case and in Kenya.
But for this year, perhaps as a starting point we can take some of the elements from regional perspectives and best practices forums. In other words, choose some of the best practices for regional or national experiences over the five years which demonstrate progress or not, and take the discussion from there.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Yes, Bertrand.
>>FRANCE: Thank you. I'd like just to contribute by saying that one of the major accomplishments of the IGF in the last five years is to have allowed the different perspectives on a single issue to emerge, so that the formulation of the issues sometimes has shifted and has evolved.
I wonder whether one way to conduct this session, and I fully support what was said by Constantin before, regarding not mixing evaluation of the topics and evaluation of the IGF itself, but one way to conduct this session would be to see how the topic's formulation has evolved through the five years. And in this respect, I would strongly support what Jeannette was saying.
Those first five years have allowed a certain number of sensitive issues to be discussed, at least. Even the enhanced cooperation thing which was a complete taboo word five years ago is now getting into the language almost without any notice.
If I may personally share one point regarding the elephant in the room, I think the outcome of the five years is that the formulation that has been used so far that Jeannette is mentioning, which is the unilateral control of the United States government on the critical Internet resources, is actually not conducive to discussion, because it is a formulation that is too strict.
And so one of the evaluations is whether we have now a better understanding of whether there is a problem there or not. Likewise on the questions of control or access to content. These are sensitive issues, and I think the five years have shown that the question of managing the rules that apply to content is actually not only a problem of whether you are in favor of freedom of expression or against, it's a challenge that every single country is facing.
And so I would just encourage that we can hold the session to see whether some formulations have emerged that are now considered as a common problem instead of the kind of debate that we had of us versus them in WSIS environments or so.
I think several topics have moved in the last five years in that direction, and not only the one that Jeannette was mentioning.
And it could prepare, indeed, the next round and the next five years of the IGF.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes, Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: While I Guy that considerable space has to be given to the ways issues have now been seen and the evolution of discerning of those issues have come about, and the new issues, but as we discuss IGF over five years, the issues at the WSIS should also remain an important baseline.
And I think the moderator should go back to some of those issues, what were the concerns of the WSIS, and then look at what has happened over the five years. So that baseline should not be missed.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. So then from what I gather, we have to make clear that this is not a session on the evaluation of the IGF. It is a session about the -- how Internet governance has evolved over these five years, the changes which have taken place.
And I think, also, how the challenge is different, because the nature of the Internet now is quite different from what the Internet was five years ago. You didn't have that much of, say, user refined content five years ago as you have now. You don't have as much by way of the spread of the Internet in countries where English is not the language, Latin script is not being used. And these are dimensions which pose a different set of priorities for Internet governance and what may have been the case five years ago.
And that aspect should also come out in some form.
And the format would be more as an open discussion rather than -- perhaps with a small initial panel of stakeholders to kick off the discussion.
Yes, you wanted the floor.
>>PETER HELLMONDS: Thank you, Chair. Just a quick question.
Would it be useful in that context to speak about, in the sense of an evolution of the IGF, also about the regional IGFs and perhaps also on how can we translate what we are discussing on an international and on a regional level into national policy and law-making?
I remember, in particular, my own country, there has been at least one law that now no one wants to put into action even after it has been signed into law by the President. And we could probably avoid these kind of things if we had a chance to inform lawmakers before they started drafting.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think this is a good point that one of the things that we should be looking at is not just Internet governance at a global level but what's happening at a national level.
You are talking of one problem, but I will mention another one, which is the fact that over these five years, the governance arrangements at the national level in many developing countries have changed and changed in a very constructive way over these five years. And that, I think, also has to come out in some form.
So this really should be -- it's not about an IGF as such. It is about the overall landscape on Internet governance.
And, yes, I think the national dimension should come out.
The types of cooperation which has emerged, the -- on spam, on cybercrime, on Internet security.
There are a whole slew of mechanisms of cooperation which have emerged which -- over the past five years, which were not there five years ago.
So I think it's important that we, in a sense, chart, lay out the landscape of cooperation which has emerged over these five years, rather than just focus on IGF or the -- one area of governance.
And the way I think we should do this is by starting off with a panel, but the panel which would try and cover this broad territory, I think we should get somebody who will talk about how Internet governance has evolved in developed -- Take, for instance, the whole emergence of a multistakeholder framework in Brazil. Now, that happened essentially over the past -- post Tunis, the emergence of a multistakeholder structure for Internet management. It's a post Tunis development. Or what has happened in India.
These are things which need to come out, that the landscape is changing.
Okay, Stephen and then somebody else. Jeannette, I think, and then Janis.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Thank you, Chair. After listening to the input by the chairman and also from the floor, from my colleagues, yes, I think it has to be issues based or topics based, particularly we do actually have five or six common topics that have been running through IGF or generally speaking for the last five years.
I have one resonance and one suggestion.
The resonance is maybe we can structure this session in terms of looking at the panoramic, the landscape point of view. The fact that with this platform, what has been the impact in terms of the various policy issues, impact in terms of multistakeholding, impacts in terms of the nonconfrontational because there is no negotiated outcome out of it. Those are the really good points about IGF.
And through that, that general landscape discussion or presentation, we could ask some of the stakeholders who have been involved, let's say in access and diversity, in openness, security and privacy, and provide examples and cases upon which could amplify the points made in terms of the advantages and the good things that we have done so far. So that would be one way to look at it.
The other, my suggestion is because it says here taking stock of Internet governance and the way forward, and it was -- the chairman was talking about way forward, obviously, would be looking at is it different landscape, are there emerging issues compared now as compared to five years ago, so I am suggesting not to -- suggesting consideration. Maybe the last session here, emerging issues, should be the penultimate session. The ultimate session is actually taking stock of Internet governance and the way forward.
Thank you, Chair.
>>NITIN DESAI: You want to switch the two sessions. Okay.
Janis, and then Jeannette.
>>LATVIA: Thank you, Nitin. And let me thank you for kind greetings.
I would like to react on your last suggestion, and I think that the way how you are proposing the session should be shaped is very wise. It would bring a lot of interesting information and good discussion.
My only concern is since the change in Internet governance has been so big, and the Internet governance term itself is not just governance of management of critical resources, but according to WGIG definition, that covers much broader issues. So maybe it would be useful to ask somebody -- and here I am thinking about academic institutions, that they try to map out and prepare kind of input to the session in form of whether small document or, as DiploFoundation knows how to do, drawings, pictures, trying to explain in simple terms what changes have happened in five years in Internet governance but in the broader sense, not exclusively to management -- of management of critical resources.
Just a thought.
>>NITIN DESAI: Jeannette, did you want the floor?
>>JEANETTE HOFMANN: No, sorry.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think it is helpful to set the scene. We will do it in a manner that is very matter of fact and objective, because this is an issue on which there will be differences of perception. And we have to give full space to all differences to be voiced and expressed.
My suggestion that this -- we'll take up Stephen's suggestion of switching the order in a moment. That we then think of this session as one where there would be -- we could probably start off with a panel, and would you still need a moderator to pose questions or do we just let it run and ask people to contribute to the -- in an open debate?
Because everybody will have a view on this. And I'm not sure that the people who come there will be very patient and listen to a lot of people on the podium. They want to say something, so my suggestion is we keep a relatively small and compact panel, the minimum that is necessary to frame issues, and then really run it as an open forum, open debate, and invite people to speak on the theme of where were we on Internet governance five years ago, where are we now, and where do we need -- what are the unsolved issues that we still need to look at.
Rather than have a moderator who is trying to guide people. It won't work. People will feel that, oh, we are trying to suppress this or suppress that.
It's better to have it as an open forum and let all voices be heard.
Let's take up Stephen's suggestion. His suggestion is we switch the order. Have the emerging issues, which is -- we'll come to the content of the emerging issues. The suggestion was to build it around cloud computing. But I thought that we should really end the IGF with the taking stock session.
My experience of the last session is it tends to fray a little because people have travel plans and there's an end-of-term mood. And usually the last sessions of the IGFs do tend to become a little scrappy.
Yes, Stephen?
>>STEPHEN LAU: There are different ways to look at it. Usually, sometimes when we have -- I mean, an example is that in conferences and fora is that sometimes we purposefully put the heavyweight session last, or of equal weight to the opening, to make sure people stay behind and stay for the entire conference.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: This is a heavyweight conference for the 200 people out of the 1500 who are passionately interested in Internet governance, but it's not a heavyweight session for the 1300 who are not interested. Please remember that.
And so we may end up with just us meeting and talking about it.
I'm quite open to the suggestion. I don't have particularly strong views which way we do it, but my impression of the past IGFs is it does tend to start -- people have travel plans, people have to get somewhere, VIPs go missing and things like that.
Whereas cloud computing, I'm not sure that necessarily is going to be a huge draw, but at least there will probably be a larger number of people interested in the policy issues around cloud computing.
Emily and then Miguel.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Thank you. I just wanted to respond to your suggestion about the format of the session, and to go back to something we discussed in February, which was to have two moderator, no panel format for a number of these sessions. And this seems to be one of the ones that this could work very well, because my impression is people would prefer to participate rather than listening to speeches from the panel, and that no matter how much you say to people to have short opening remarks, they do tend to take up the whole session.
But with a two-moderator format and careful planning so that all of the main topics are moved through at quite a pace, then there is more scope for people to really feel they're contributing, and that might be fitting in this last session.
>>NITIN DESAI: The only problem is that there's a tendency, if you don't have something in the beginning, for the discussion to go all over the place.
We will consider that. Miguel and then Marilyn and then there's a remote participant.
>>CSTD: My suggestion would be the dynamics can be with the two moderators, but also, I would like to support Ambassador Karklins' idea of encouraging the academic people to try to have an impartial small document on what has happened to Internet governance during these five years. And this could be presented as an introduction to that. And of course it will be reactions that they agree with the views or don't agree with the views and others, but it will launch the debate and it will create the dynamics as well. And we may have a basis to discuss the whole issue.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you.
My name is Marilyn Cade. I'd like to suggest that while I like the idea of a call for short white papers, I think we should be open in who we would accept such papers from. For instance, it could be a think tank who wanted to put work into doing such a paper. It could be a group of academics. It could be a single academic.
So perhaps the question might be to sort of think about what the call for papers, what topics it's going to address, because people -- there may be a broader interest in doing some work or submitting something.
I would also just say that while I support the idea of two moderators, I do think it's probably a good idea to start the session with just the facts or at least a portrayal of what the facts are in certain areas, because that will, then, stimulate further dialogue. And it may be important to sort of think also about allocating certain amounts of time to different topics so that each topic gets thoroughly discussed, and particularly remote participants feel that they are able to be incorporated.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
Yes, why don't you come in. Then I will take the remote participant.
>>
>>SWEDEN: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's Maria from Sweden.
I would like to say I support the idea from Emily Taylor to have two moderators, let as many people as possible have the possibility to speak. And I think it was very good the last time in Egypt, and it was like a timeline. Sort of the clock was pretty much ticking so you need to finish up in a certain amount of time.
And if you are afraid of being a bit unfocused to cover too many areas, why not limit, like Marilyn Cade also said, having a certain amount of questions or certain topics announced in advance so we really know that everybody taking -- having a speech at the stock-taking session knows in advance what you need to cover.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: There's a remote participant?
>>GINGER PAQUE: Yes, remote participant Rafid Fatani has backed what Emily Taylor started saying and our colleague have gone on saying, that, as a matter of fact, he would suggest a floor moderator, so that there's active interaction from the floor. But he goes further and says that he thinks that no panel should have more than six speakers and should have floor moderators to make the whole -- all of the sessions more interactive.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Bill Drake and then Peter.
>>WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you.
I just want to build on a couple of the suggestions.
I very much like the idea -- I'm always surprised when somebody says something nice about academics. I like Janis's idea of having somebody do some background writing on this. But actually building on what Marilyn just said, I am wondering might it be interesting to do something in the manner of an open call for inputs where you used a Web form or something like that, and asked people to respond in a structured way with their views on what's changed in the last five years, and then try to aggregate some of that in advance of the discussion?
It might be a way to promote some engagement in the wider community.
Also, by the way, we note that there's an interesting potential synergy here with -- I wasn't here in the morning but I understand you talked about the -- setting the scene panel and the idea of maybe using the papers that are being commissioned -- or not commissioned but written for the IGF book this year, which I asked the authors to look at how the different main themes have been addressed at the IGF over the course of the past five years, and to sort of map the evolution and make suggestions and recommendations.
So there's a sort of dimension that's how have these issues been addressed internally within the IGF, and then there's a larger component which is what's going on in the wider world, what shifts have we seen, whether in ICANN or in the security environment or in the digital intellectual property environment and so on, where you can perhaps bring together a broader range of views.
So I think it might be interesting focus for the discussion.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think this is precisely what I was going to suggest on this, that instead of a panel, a substitute for the panel can be an open request for contributions. I have always had this -- we have been talking about this, of course. They say why can't we follow a Wiki process for preparing for the IGF. We never succeeded in doing it, but let's try to approximate that by saying that putting up very quickly, sharpening these questions so they are really forcing people to focus on the issues rather than just IGF. And putting it out on our Web site. Perhaps most directed questions, drawing the attention of where it's academic institutions, associations which have been connected with us, to say, look, we put this out. Please look at it and put something up.
We get the aggregated thing, and when we get the material, all of it will be available to everybody. Nothing would be lost.
And we see whether we can distill out of this some -- Markus is a master of distilling the -- this out of multiple contributions.
We can try something like that. But in any case, the original contributions would all be available. And in that sense, we don't need a panel. And we then just go straight and to say this is it, this is what the range of views is on different dimensions. All of them are available to you here. And now let's talk and see how we go.
In that case, I'm not -- whether we need one moderator, two moderators is an open question. Two moderators simply because they -- it does help, it livens up the process a little. One person watches who is speaking, what's happening. The other person -- So they can take turns. And having two moderators does help.
And I think we should basically just look for moderators who would be reasonably fair minded in calling people up, that's all. Because we would have the material. We would have a web-based panel, if you like. But it's not selected by us. It's self-selected and open to everybody, and we would make sure that we invite people who are writing and talking about this to put up contributions.
Yeah, I have Peter, then Janis, then ETNO.
>>PETER HELLMONDS: Thank you, Chair. I actually like what you have proposed in the sense of using the Web as an advance way of starting the discussion, and it reminds me really pretty much of what "The Economist" has done a couple of times on the Web. If you are subscribers of "The Economist" Facebook page you can see that it invites sort of informed debate on the Web.
The one thing that strikes me there which I think could be an additionally useful way of putting the questions is they have sometimes a very strong pro and a contra or two sides of the coin, two proponents taking opposite views. And that sort of helps to distill and focus minds perhaps better than just throwing up questions in the very open. So that could be a suggestion to look at whether that format of sort of advocatus diaboli and his counterpart would work well in that context. But otherwise, it's a great suggestion with that advance discussion on the Web, and I appreciate that suggestion. I second it.
>>NITIN DESAI: A sinistri and a dextri. But that will be a little difficult in the U.N. It's not easy in the U.N. to have this.
I think it's probably better to pose the questions objectively and put it out.
I don't think there -- We could -- I have seen the format, but it will be a little tough in the U.N. context to put up two violently contrasting views and say what do you think about this type of thing. It's a little easier for "The Economist" to do it.
Janis and then ETNO.
>>LATVIA: Thank you, Nitin.
From my personal experience from moderating session in Sharm El Sheikh, I can tell you that it is very useful to have two moderators. To be on the stage working two or three hours in a row, it's rather stressful.
And, also, if there are two moderators, there might be also interesting dynamics between them, each playing kind of good cop/bad cop role. And that makes sessions more dynamic.
So I would encourage, think about two moderators for longer sessions in the plenary hall.
>>NITIN DESAI: ETNO.
>>ETNO: Yes, thank you, Chair.
I forgot to say it in my first intervention, but the discussion is about taking-stock session, and we favor the panel and then the structured discussion. That seems more appropriate to us, and I will explain.
We will have a three-hour session; right? This is a topic which could easily go off, and we have to be very careful. We need structure. A panel could help.
By a panel, it doesn't mean it's going to be a lot of people. It could be people that have prepared papers. It would be nice if people could prepare papers and then the IGF Secretariat could take them and present them in a synthesis paper.
What is really important is that we have a good description of the issues that will be discussed. So we think that the session could be divided into three parts. One, the first part to be a panel, and by panel it could be a couple of keynote speeches. Then to have a moderated discussion by two moderators on specific questions. And then a third part completely free, open.
I don't know. I'm just putting this as a suggestion. Maybe it can work. Maybe other people have a different view. It's just this is our view.
And given the opportunity, I want to stress the point that we need a very good background paper, not just for this session but for all the sessions. We need to think that there's going to be a lot of people that will be coming for the first time for the IGF, so we need to give them a good description of what will be discussed during the meeting. And that's our job here, to try to promote this.
So a good background paper, as we did last year in Sharm, even better this year. That could help a lot.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: I know some people would like a panel, but my own sense is that given the fact that people will want to talk here, we have to leave maximum space for people to talk. And our substitute for the panel would be this Web-based exercise which would lead to a background paper. Except the background paper would have a range of views. It will not be one view, necessarily.
The moderators are not there to direct -- I don't think the moderators are there to talk about this, but more to guide the flow of the conversation rather than to be sort of school masters.
This will not work in the U.N. context.
Yes, Bill, you wanted the floor.
>>WILLIAM DRAKE: While I certainly think two people could do an effective moderation of a session like this, thinking also what of ETNO is suggesting about having different people, another way to handle this might be to have rapporteurs for different topics.
So let's say you specified six main arenas of I.G. Names and numbers, security, standards, intellectual property and e-commerce issues. Pick six whatever, or four or five. You can have different people assigned to be responsible to serve as the rapporteur for the thread that has happened online who could then come to the session, summarize the main points that were put forward by various people, and then translate that into a few provocative questions that can be thrown out to the audience to try to stimulate discussion for a bounded amount of time, and then you move on to the next one.
That way you would have people who would be responsible for sort of working with the community of folks that were providing inputs in each of these areas, feeding back and forth on ideas, and then distilling it rather than leaving it to the two moderators to try to summarize everything that's been said across the full range of issues. It's just an option.
>>NITIN DESAI: I think what you are saying is instead of the idea of one sort of person summarizing -- trying to get the sense of the contributions out, maybe there were three, four, five. Doesn't matter how many. That is possible. Certainly we can keep that as a possibility.
And that this gets presented. But ideally it should be presented in advance so that people come prepared for this.
And let's be realistic, that out of the thousand people who may be present in that room, not other than 100 or 200 will have read that, because not everybody is going to go onto the site, prepare themselves for this meeting.
So we have to be reasonably -- But what will happen is that those people who are coming there from an organized group, like country delegations or from industry associations, will come prepared. They will come prepared, and that will help. A lot of NGO groups will come prepared. They will see what has come out of this exercise and will want to comment on it.
So even though there may not be more than a few hundred there, they will probably be speaking for the more organized stakeholder groups. And I'm sure the academics who are there will also want to speak.
And we could certainly make sure that their voices are heard. And part of the job of the moderator is to make sure that the range of voices is heard.
There's also the area of remote participants will gain because they know what the agenda is. They will have the text in front of them. So the remote participants will also be able to join in in a much more constructive way.
Let's try this. So it's a departure from our previous model, to some extent. It's not a panel, but it has some of the merits of a panel in terms of framing of issues.
It's an attempt to try and do something which reflects the fact that there will be a diversity of views, and so instead of having a six to eight person panel to reflect the full diversity, we save time by this process.
My only request is that the three questions need to be made more sharper so as to make sure that the contributions we get are useful.
Okay. Emerging issues. Cloud computing. This is what came up last time.
Do we stay with that?
And I think it's important that we -- that this be known so that people come prepared for this dialogue and discussion. And how do we do this? Do we get some of the major players in this to come and talk about it?
I know that there are several workshop proposals on cloud computing which have come. About three or four of them. And -- in the list that I have here.
Yes, UNESCO.
And then Fouad.
>>UNESCO: Thank you, chairman. I'm sorry that I missed some discussions, but I would like to come back to the themes a little bit.
At the last IGF consultation meeting, I remember that a theme of openness, security and privacy are under the same line, but at the list of workshop proposals, openness has been separated from security and privacy.
I want to say that we see more correlation between the three issues, and that's why we proposed our workshop, privacy and social networking under the openness theme because we would like to address it in the context of openness because it's the fundamental principle for all the other discussions.
And also from the proposed workshops, I see there are overlapping issues among them. If we put them together, it would be easier for the later-on consultation of the workshops.
And the other point is my personal opinion that I want to suggest if we could make special session for children and the use issue, because you can see there are workshops on the use from different perspective and the different themes and from different regions. And there are almost every subthemes. And also, nowadays children use issues for the Internet governance, such burning subject.
If we can have a dedicated session to bring together all the other kind of workshops which might bring more outcome.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: First, we cannot bring in a new session. The basic structure of the meeting is set. It has been announced. It has been indicated to the countries. So there is no question of a new session being brought in. We cannot change the basic structure of the meeting, which is all set.
As far as security, openness and privacy are concerned, they are together. The session on security, openness and privacy is one session, and the workshops are simply grouped in a certain way, and there is a certain degree of arbitrariness in what's grouped where.
In any case, somebody is looking into the question of which workshop fits into which area.
On the whole issue of youth, we have discussed this and the idea is to integrate it into all of the sessions, not a separate session on youth, but to have young people involved.
And would I strongly request, then, all of the organizations to make sure that they bring young people as part of the delegations. So here let me convey this request to UNESCO that you please make sure that you have enough young people as part of your delegation. Otherwise, where will we get young people to participate if they are not part? We cannot afford to bring people there.
And therefore, it's very important, so I would strongly request that all of the -- maybe organizations like UNESCO which have been championing the cause of youth can take the lead by making sure that a large proportion of your delegation consists of young people.
How do you that, I don't know. Whether you are going -- did -- that's a little headache which you will have to resolve, as to how UNESCO delegation can include young people.
Yes, Stephen.
>>STEPHEN LAU: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure whether you have covered what I'm sure has been covered before. We are talking about cloud computing as an emerging issue.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yeah.
>>STEPHEN LAU: We are also talking about youth. So far we have been saying about their participation, make sure that we get critical mass here and all that.
Maybe you have raised it already, but I just want to make sure. Would it be relevant to actually ask youth -- I mean, the fairly younger set of youth, what they are saying are the emerging issues?
I mean, we talk maybe from a business perspective, we talk about from the government perspective, like e-engagement and all that. Maybe they would have a different perspective.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Coming back to the cloud computing issue, we have got, in the past one and a half months, we have got sufficient time to think through the issue, and there are some things that we should keep in mind when we are selecting how to go about this issue. And the first one would be not to turn it into basically an advertising stage for certain providers.
Second thing, cloud computing, what's there in the public, what's actually happening on the ground is a big digital divide between that. Because in one space, we only hear about the commercial clouds, but then you have the government services cloud, you have the research cloud, research services cloud, you have clouds on open source. Basically all the new servers, operating systems shifting today in open source and Linux, and they have virtualization and cloud services built into them, which means even without being connected to the Internet or being on the Internet, you can actually start providing services, cloud-based services, and the capacities can grow. And they can grow at phenomenal rates for research.
So this -- So tackling the issue of cloud computing, I think it would also require a balanced multistakeholder approach to. And we will have to be very careful selecting that. How do we go about this?
>>NITIN DESAI: Particularly the first point that you made, it shouldn't become an occasion for a beauty show by different providers.
Yes, Bertrand, and then Ayesha.
>>FRANCE: Yeah, just a quick comment on the cloud computing thing.
There will be workshops that will be explaining the technical whereabouts of cloud computing. It's probably useful to have as much focus as possible in the session, in the emerging issues session on cloud computing on the government issues or the impact of cloud computing on existing governance issues. Like if it could be structured around impact on traditional governance issues by cloud computing and potential new issues that are emerging because of cloud computing, it probably would be an interesting structure.
It's a little bit what we did last year with the social media and social network applications.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
I had Ayesha.
>>ICC: Thank you, Chair. First I wanted to just point out that ICC/BASIS and the government of Kenya have proposed a workshop on the implications of cloud computing. And so obviously I would think that that workshop would be, along with some of the others that are taking certain dimensions of cloud computing and focusing in on them in the workshops would be good foundational workshops before this session occurs.
I also think that as in previous years, the emerging issues session has been a nice opportunity to have a first discussion about this, and one of the things that struck me at the EuroDIG on the discussion on cloud computing and cybercrime was the sharing of experience that some of the issues are not new, and some of the issues are new. But understanding how the new issues are posing new governance challenges and sharing experiences about what different stakeholder groups view to be the challenges, what do they need, what are the concerns for users. In a capacity building sense, it's a great opportunity to raise awareness about the issues.
So I would just encourage that this session be shaped in a way that allows for a better understanding to come out of the main session for a broad range of people.
Thank you.
>>NITIN DESAI: Let me -- Now we you have comment on how we do this session. How do we do this session? We say, okay, it's a session on cloud computing. Start talking. Is that it? What do I do? How do I get it moving? What is it that we do in this session? Do we have a panel? Do we have a keynote address by somebody? How do we make it work is something which we need to ask.
Or do we just assume that everybody there is familiar with cloud computing and, therefore, would be able to talk sufficiently knowledgeably about it?
Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Approaching the subject, you will have to set the stage or to set the scene for this, because people are going to have -- like there's too much -- what do you call it? Speculation out there. And only a very small amount of people actually know what cloud services are and what they provide, and the types of implications coming around them.
So when I said that let's have a multistakeholder approach to it, what's the concern that the public and legal implications, what the private sector is providing, what the people think about it; right?
So we will have to balance it out through this way, that we have either three or six people who speak on it and they set the scene.
This will be that maybe the first 20 minutes or the first half an hour goes to this, because you will definitely have to make the audience aware of cloud computing. And that might also support Ayesha's concerns. Maybe that would help in bringing everyone to a common understanding from where the discussions can start amongst all the stakeholders.
>>NITIN DESAI: If we start with something akin to a small panel.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Exactly. You will have to do it eventually. You will need to have people from the technical side, you will need to have people from the public side, you will have to have people from -- sorry, the public and legal, and then you will have to have the people who are using those services; right? And are either scaling their lives, their businesses, so forth.
>>NITIN DESAI: Parminder. And a remote participant.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: I agree with Fouad that there has to be some kind of a small panel which will introduce the issues, but there should be a complete diversity in that panel and it should not only consist of people who promote cloud keeping. There should be people who should be able to talk about the problems, the governance aspects of it and if you had three or four people that do all sides of the problem, and then we can start a discussion from the floor.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yes, we have a remote participant.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Yes. We have Katitza Rodriguez who is stuck at the airport. She says, I see that discussion as a holistic approach. We need first an introduction, introductory panel to set the scene not only of what is cloud computing but also the policies issues that arise from cloud computing. Not only from privacy, security, open standards.
So the introduction and then the issues.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay.
>>LEISYL FRANZ: Hi, it's Leisyl Franz from Tech America.
It just struck me as you were talking about this issue of introducing the topic or introducing cloud computing to folks, it may be an opportunity to be a little interactive and have some kind of demonstration that might even be put together in a multistakeholder way.
I say that as an idea, not necessarily as something that's fully formed in my mind. But just as people are talking about a panel of what is cloud computing, we might have been paneled out for the week.
I'm just wondering if there's another way to demonstrate it, to show it, and perhaps pinpoint some of the issues that people are talking about now, the government piece, the legal piece. And perhaps it might be an excellent way to bring in some youth and how they are using -- I don't know. Just some more visual impact and a visual presentation that shows the impacts.
>>NITIN DESAI: Did you want the floor?
>>LITHUANIA: Thank you, Chairman. If we are talking about cloud computing, there are two major players in such area. There are data processors and data controllers. Maybe from a session perspective we can look at such a workshop with a focus on two different, let's say, themes, how they related -- how especially legislation is related with data processors and also with data controllers.
And, also, there are a lot of questions. Is the new legislation must be involved or is only recommendations needed at the present time?
And also, from procurement point of view, if we're talking about this, is -- let's say if we are talking about cloud computing, is that where a new kind of outsourcing or not? That is quite a different interest. And my suggestion is to put such a workshop on two such themes, from a data processors perspective and to look at it from a data controllers perspectives.
>>NITIN DESAI: Thank you.
Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Fouad a recent example came into my mind from Pakistan where we were in a consultation on how would the government of Punjab use hosting services. And it was finally decided that they couldn't host any of the data outside the country on any data server within the cloud, to anywhere. And then they had to, like, look at local companies providing possible cloud services. But then the local service providers had all their cloud infrastructure abroad in those countries.
So at the end of the day, they came down to the conclusion that they couldn't actually utilize the cloud for government services.
So this is the kind of thing we are going to be dealing with. These are the kind of discussions that might be coming up in this session.
So we have to, like, at least from even our topics that we are mentioning under cloud computing, should be like one, two, three, four. Like this is how the panel is going to go, this is we are going to touch introduction to cloud computing, public policy concerns of cloud computing, maybe business perspectives on cloud computing, and then maybe user perspectives on cloud computing. And then you go into the main discussion.
>>NITIN DESAI: Okay. So we can -- we are probably thinking in terms of a panel where there's one person who basically does a "what is cloud computing" type of explanation.
Second, a listing of the major public-policy issues which arise from cloud computing. From the governance and the legal angle.
And then a third, a set of user perspectives. Perhaps two or three user perspectives, as people who have attempted -- or, rather, what would happen if they would -- you gave the example of a public sector entity, and then it runs into this difficulty that -- yeah.
So there are -- So maybe this is the way that we can try and structure this. And then leave it for an open discussion as to how we go ahead.
Any other reflections on this? That is a case -- if that is the case, we have come to the last part of the last session. We -- now I turn to Markus to tell us what our agenda for tomorrow would be.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think we should have a second reading of each session, go through them again. It's always difficult to discuss in an open framework who should be moderator as you talk about people, but I would encourage people to think about possible names and maybe forward the list or forward the names to the secretariat so that we would have some names and we could discuss a little bit informally whether they would be suitable, bearing in mind, if we have two moderators, that they should be not necessarily from the same viewpoint. So, as you suggested, that the security person should maybe focus on the openness aspect, and the other way around. So thinking also about the background.
There is the list of workshops as homework.
I think Ginger had mentioned the question of that they are not all under the right heading. I fully agree.
In past years, we did, as the secretariat, try and, in dialogue with workshop proponents, say, "Look, you wanted to be there, but we think you should be there because similar workshops are also under a different category." But if we do that as a collective exercise, I think it's better. These are not scientific criteria, I think we all know. But the program should be coherent, that related workshops are all under the same heading.
And if the meaning of the heading shifts over the years, there's nothing wrong, as long as we agree that's the new understanding. The question of access came up, which we defined in one way, and which seems to be shifting another.
So that's fine. But I think it should be coherent. And we can then go back to the workshop organizers to sort that out.
Also, I think it would be good to have your input on which workshops are candidates for merging. Today, we only looked at the workshops that would be direct inputs into the main sessions. But we will need to go further, and, to put it brutally, our aim has to be to eliminate some of these workshops. We hope to be able to do it as much as possible in a nice way by merging.
But we have taken in the past the approach that we ask for a positive listing of workshops rather than focusing on what is negative, that is, select those we would like to see in. But we would also have to tell other workshops, "Look, if you have to be in, you have to merge with others. We cannot have the number of workshops we have."
And for those, we also have to think about names of panelists for those sessions where we thought that it's basically just one session -- as far as I remember now, that's the cloud computing -- who should do what.
In the past, we have always agreed on having as much -- on the principle of having small panels, but we found it very difficult to achieve as an objective. Yes, we agreed, panels should be small, at the same time should reflect diversity. But in order to get there, we would need to have the right names.
>>NITIN DESAI: Yeah. Let me just say this, that the purpose of the cloud computing panel is not necessarily to reflect a range of views, but simply to provide some basic knowledge for the discussion. That's all.
It's not there to -- because range of views will hopefully be expressed from the floor. So it's looking for somebody who will make an objective presentation about what is cloud computing without pushing any particular model; somebody who will list what are the implications of cloud computing in terms of Internet governance issues, particularly issues of privacy and security; and then the user perspective. And there perhaps you do have an issue as to spread. But we'll have to think as to how many we can have there. Because, after all, everybody will have the right -- the opportunity to speak.
Then what I suggest is we meet tomorrow. I will not actively encourage a second discussion, because there's no guarantee the second discussion will come to the same conclusion as the first one. So that is never to be encouraged.
But if there are some second thoughts, we can always go back.
But we should be focusing on the workshops and the names and any other issues discovered.
Yes, from the remote.
>>GINGER PAQUE: Thank you very much. If I may just give a few short comments that may have come in during the day by remote.
When it was questioned, how could we proceed, what technique could we use to gather ideas, one of the remote participants suggested perhaps a Wiki beforehand, as much as questions and a prepared agenda.
On youth, there was emphasis that the youth do not want to just come and just be participants in the IGF with the sessions and also the workshops, but also to join the main sessions and be incorporated into the whole process.
One of the remote participants from the Caribbean suggested that in the stock-taking session, benchmarking -- one benchmark could be the balance of multistakeholders. That would indicate how the multistakeholder balance has changed and improved over the five years. And one of the youth participants in -- replied to that that we must remember that youth are a multistakeholder in their own right.
So --
>>NITIN DESAI: That is something which -- we -- we will tell them, time will cure their problems.
The -- Okay. So let's leave it at that. And we meet tomorrow, then, at the same time, same place. Same time, same -- 10:00 tomorrow. And I hope we can close -- finish by lunchtime tomorrow. Hmm? Okay?