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A: Our aim is to promote transparency and dialogue regarding international Net governance, with the hope that people will be better equipped to contribute constructively to the process and to hold government accountable.
A: At present, more than a dozen international organizations are deciding rules for the networked world. Because these bodies deal with hundreds of other topics as well, information on Internet initiatives is lost amongst other material on their websites and in written reports.
The Net Dialogue website is about access to Net rulemaking by intergovernmental organizations. The basic notion behind it is that an increasing number of rules are being developed by international bodies, but that people don't have time to follow this decision-making. Net Dialogue aims to give people a quick survey of international Net governance in one stop, and to point them to additional resources.
Q: What are the specific objectives of this website?
A: Our objectives are to consolidate information on international Net initiatives and spur interdisciplinary discussion. To do so, this "clearinghouse" website presents summaries of key Net initiatives by international organizations. In addition, each page that describes an initiative also offers an opportunity for people to comment on its significance.
Our team hopes to see the following outcomes: First, parties already involved in aspects of Net governance will gain a broader view; second, other groups may grow more active in monitoring international Net policymaking; next, citizens will be in a better position to hold government accountable in Net matters; and ultimately, decision-makers will be aware of alternative policy options for the networked world.
Q: Are you advocating international governance of the networked world?
A: We are not advocating international Net governance but rather describing it, in the hopes of promoting public understanding and sound policymaking.
Q: You seem to use the term "Net" rather than "Internet". Why?
A: Basically, we use the word "Net" for two reasons. First, it is comprehensive for the present. We see "Net" as a nice, succinct way of referring to what others sometimes mistakenly refer to as the "Internet" - by which they mean both (a) the information and communication technologies that make up today's Internet and other internet-protocol based networks, and (b) cyberspace, or the "place" where people's activities over those networks are sometimes thought to occur. The second reason we use the word "Net" is that it is flexible for the future. While we can't say now which information and communication technologies will dominate the future, we can say with reasonable certainty that we will have a networked world. On our home page we use the term "Internet governance" so that people will find us when using this term in querying search engines. So, too, the UN Working Group on Internet Governance has used this term in the broad sense.
Q: What do you mean by "governance"?
A: By "governance" we mean the process of setting and administering policy.
Q: What does "policy" mean in this context?
A: "Policy" can be a choice to regulate or to refrain from regulating. For example, governments may choose to rely on industry self-regulation as a policy.
Q: Isn't there widespread disagreement over the term "Internet governance"?
A: Yes. We recognize that to a technology purist, the term "Internet" refers to the core technology of TCP/IP that enables communications between endpoints; to this person, what matters is the technology itself, and "governance" belongs in another realm. Meanwhile, people in the policymaking world use the term "Internet governance" to refer to governments setting and administering policy not just for the infrastructure of IP-based networks, but also for the activities that take place over these networks.
Q: What constitutes "international" in your book?
A: By "international" we mean a collection of countries that is large enough effectively to determine the direction of Internet policy for the world - in other words, a group that constitutes a "critical mass" for a given issue.
Q: How is this website structured?
A: Material on the site is organized around three main categories: Organizations, Initiatives, and Governance Areas.
The Organization pages give overviews of organizations and tell why they are dealing with Net policy. These pages also indicate the specific initiatives that any given organization has produced.
The Initiative pages give an account of specific actions that organizations have taken that result in concrete instruments - that is, treaties, recommendations, or guidelines. (In the case of the WTO's Work Programme on E-Commerce, the initiative serves to interpret preexisting instruments.)
In addition, the Initiative pages offer our view of the significance of initiatives, both in terms of addressing specific problems, and in terms of marking a movement toward international integration. These pages provide an opportunity for people to comment as well, helping to promote understanding of initiatives' significance from a range of perspectives. (See below.)
As the real substance of the website, the Initiative pages can be reached through Organization pages, through Governance Area pages, through the Initiatives index page, and through the "hot topic" links in the home-page honeycomb.
The Initiative pages link to Background pages to help interested people find further information as to how an initiative came to fruition. These pages generally tell which subordinate bodies (e.g., committee, council, etc.) of an organization was tasked to draft the instrument.
The Governance Area pages tell how traditional questions of government crop up in cyberspace, and how governments are finding that they must cooperate to derive solutions. These pages link to Initiatives that seem to fall under each respective governance areas.
Q: What initiatives do you cover?
A: In selecting material for the Net Dialogue website, we seek to include an organization's initiatives that are changing the architecture of Internet-protocol based networks and/or the regulatory environment for people's activities in cyberspace.
In featuring initiatives by organizations, our preference is to present basic information on negotiated agreements (treaties, guidelines, declarations, major technical standards, etc.). Of course, the nature of some organizations requires that their initiatives be more along the lines of "programs". In including this type of initiative, we aim to distinguish between those programs that are primarily for educational or public relations purposes (which we do not wish to include, even though important for their own purposes), and those that have a regulatory impact.
Note: If you know of an initiative that we should cover, please complete this form so that we may include this material.
Q: Which organizations do you cover?
A: We first try to cover organizations with the broadest membership that are treating a specific issue in Net governance. In other words, the preference is to describe initiatives by multilateral organizations. Where an initiative appears likely to have a significant impact on the future direction of Net policy, we may include it even if the organization driving it has narrower membership, such as a plurilateral or regional organization. Again, the preference is to describe initiatives at the multilateral level since we are trying to map international Net governance in a global sense.
Obviously, many organizations have overlapping memberships, as governments work through different bodies according to their areas of competency (e.g., the World Intellectual Property Organization dealing with intellectual property, the World Trade Organization treating trade, and so forth). For the most part, the organizations covered on this website are intergovernmental. However, some are not - particularly in matters relating to infrastructure. For example, the IETF is open and comprised of individuals, and ICANN has a corporate structure with governments exerting influence through an advisory body. Similar to government agencies, these organizations boast of experts who make specialized decisions in a particular field, acting in the name of the public or the community of users. As such, these types of organizations arguably play a governmental role.
Q: In your descriptions of initiatives by organizations, you always pose the question, "Why is this initiative significant?" Is there some kind of theme you follow in describing initiatives' significance?
A: A common theme in the "significance" descriptions is the tension between national sovereignty and pooled governmental power. Part of the point here is to demonstrate that governments are choosing cooperation because it is the best option given the Internet's global nature; meanwhile, with each incremental initiative, real changes are taking place, and an international framework for Net governance is materializing.
Q: Why don't you focus more on who should make decisions for the Net?
A: Our aim is to promote transparency and dialogue by providing an overview of international initiatives to govern the Net. People are of course free to use our material to advocate various views, including normative opinions on representation.
Q: Why don't you cover the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)?
A: WSIS is a summit meeting that is bringing together stakeholders in discussions on information and communication technologies. As such, it is more of a process than an institutionalized body. In time, however, the WSIS process may morph into a formal structure; if it does, we will be sure to modify our site. For the time being, Net Dialogue may be viewed as an input to that process.
Q: Is your website focused on "eGovernment" or "eVoting" - that is, governments providing services via the Net?
A: No. This site is not centered around "eGovernment," which concerns the use of electronic communications to streamline governments' paper flow. Nor is it centered around "eVoting," which uses electronic communications for elections. Rather, the site is looking at how governments are cooperating to regulate the infrastructure of the Net and the activities that take place over it.
Of course, as we move into the networked world, these distinctions will blur: Governments' regulation of cyberspace will sometimes be indistinguishable from governments' providing services via the Net. (Governments' use of biometric technologies to check people's identities is an early example of this blurring.)
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