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Data
2005-11-09

Position adopted by the Council of the italian ISOC Chapter (WSIS 2005)

World Summit on the Information Society

The International Management of the Internet

November 2005

In relation of the present debate on the international management of the Internet core structure that will take place during the WSIS in Tunis, the “isoc.it”Council approved the following guidelines:

1. The network user base in the world is now approaching the figure of a billion of users (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), as it was correctly predicted in the RFC 3271 (Internet is for everyone) edited by Vint Cerf in 2002. The estimate in Italy is in the range of 29 million. These figures confirm that, despite the generally non-prosperous economic situation, the penetration of the Internet is steadily increasing and that the inter-net-working is today a primary instrument for communication that eases convergence of the media and globalization. The Internet structure built up on TCP/IP network protocols proved to be adequate in front of the more explosive growth of an economic system experienced in modern times.

2. In the frame of the governance of the Internet the RFCs 1591 (the structure of the names in the DNS), 2026 (the process used by the Internet community for the standardization of protocols and procedures), 3935 (mission statement for the IETF), proven to be more than adequate to support network’s growth.

3. The heritage of experience deriving from the efforts that guaranteed the scaling up of the Internet must be maintained and enriched, following the basic characteristics that assured its success.

4. The above mentioned characteristics are based on the initiative of the private sector, on the bottom up decision making, on the freedom to innovate and to bring new ideas, on the involvement of the users, on minimal constraints and regulations imposed; these characteristics are also instrumental for easing to close the digital divide. The Italian chapter of the Internet Society has welcomed the position that the Minister for Innovation and Technologies Lucio Stanca is supporting in international fora including WSIS: “ The governments should stay away from controlling the Internet”.

5. The discussion in the WSIS/WGIG environment is focused into the following alternative hypotheses regarding DNS: a. the public policy issues should be controlled by intergovernmental organizations like for example the ITU of UN; b. the public policy issues should be dealt by an international organizations like ICANN (suitably restructured) that is conducted by the private sector and has an external support by the governments (at present the GAC is assuring this function). We favour the second model with the private sector and the majority of the governments in the developed world. It is certainly to be rejected a model that intends to substitute the supervision of one government with a control by a multitude of governments; this could lead to a serious damage to the evolution of the Internet. The goal should be to minimize or eliminate the influence of a single government.

6. “isoc.it”, following its mission, aims at accompanying constantly the evolution of the public domain of the network by spreading the culture of the network in all appropriate forms, at different levels: end users, service providers, formation and information initiatives.

7. “isoc.it” express hope that any WSIS results in Tunis concerning the Internet governance will be widely circulated for a verification and search of consensus that is one of the strengths of the Internet at national and global level.

 

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