Internet Governance Forum Consultations 13 May 2008 Geneva, Switzerland
 
 Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken
during the Open Consultations of 13 May 2008.  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.

 [ Gavel. ]
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Good morning.  Good morning.  My apologies for the
 delay.  This is the usual first-day problem in Geneva where it takes time for
 people to register.  There are still a lot of people who are queued up and
 waiting to get in.  But I'm afraid we cannot wait for all of them to clear
 security.  So we better start. Last time when we met, in February, the focus of
 our discussions was very much on evaluating our experiences of the Rio
 conference.  And I think it was a useful exercise.  Quite a few very valuable
 suggestions came.  They were reflected in the summing up that I did towards the
 end of the meeting. That was placed on the Web site.  Many of you sent comments
 in.  And on the basis of that, the secretariat has prepared a paper for this
 open consultation. Our focus at this meeting has to be to look at the Hyderabad
 meeting, the meeting that will take place this December in India. The major
 things that we need to look at are the program -- well, basically, the program,
 agenda, and format of the Hyderabad meeting. You will recollect at the last
 meeting, there was a certain feeling that we don't just have to repeat the
 structure that we used in Athens or in Rio; that we need to look more carefully
 at how -- what is it that we are trying to do with the IGF.  And there were
 some suggestions about the way the meetings could be structured, the themes for
 the meeting, and so on. The secretariat has collected those comments, prepared
 a synthesis paper. And I suggest that we have an integrated discussion.  I am
 not sure that it's possible for us to break the discussion up into, first, talk
 about the program, then talk about the format.  It's a bit of a -- we think the
 two are rather interconnected. So I would be happy if we were to talk about the
 entire -- all of the elements which are there in the paper prepared by the
 secretariat together rather than trying to do it bit by bit. The main purpose
 of today's open consultation is to be able to give the MAG, the members of the
 multistakeholder advisory group, sufficient guidance to allow them over the
 next two days to work out a structure, an agenda, which can be the basis for
 action by the secretariat, by the participants.  Because I don't think we can
 wait until September. The process of constitution of the MAG is underway.  You
 are all aware of it.  The press release has come out. And I'm not going to go
 into that area today. So let me just stop here and welcome you once again and
 then turn to Markus to perhaps walk us through the paper that has been prepared
 for open consultations and frame the issues for discussion. Thank you.
 
 >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you, chairman. As you said, we have prepared a
 paper as an input into the discussions.  The main purpose of the paper was to
 provide a single text as a basis to move forward.  It combines elements of
 three papers that have been with us before, a synthesis paper that was input
 into the February meetings; the summary report of the MAG meeting last
 February; and then a paper we posted late March with a draft program outline.
 The material is taken from these papers that sum up the state of the
 preparations so far.  You have seen that we have put boxes into the paper and
 the material in there contains a synthesis of the contributions sent to the
 secretariat in response to the calls for contributions. It contains the
 synthesis from three papers we received after the February meetings.
 Unfortunately, we overlooked the one contribution sent into the discussion
 section by Jeremy Malcolm, who is a regular contributor.  My apologies to
 Jeremy.  We will make sure that this will not happy again.  However, his
 contribution is not lost.  It will be referred to in future versions of the
 paper. As in all abstraction and summarization efforts, some of the content,
 especially its richness, is lost.  That is why there is a note referring
 readers to the documents used as source and recommending that people read these
 papers if they are interested in the whole story, including the thought behind
 the comments. The paper is a rolling document.  New comments, as well as new
 work by the MAG, will be reflected in the next revised version. Different views
 were held with regard to substantive issues related to the themes.  In
 particular, also with regard to the proposed title.  On the one hand,
 universalization of the Internet versus expanding the Internet.  There was no
 unanimous view which would be the better title. There was also the point made
 that universalization may be misinterpreted as going too far, encroaching too
 much on other WSIS follow-up elements. Similar, managing and using the
 Internet.  Some people think "using" is better, as "managing" could give the
 wrong idea that the Internet is managed or should be managed, whereas others
 hold the view that "managing" conveys better the idea of Internet governance.
 There were other points mentioned in the contributions, such as linkages to
 sustainable development, relationship to climate change.  The development
 agenda was seen as an important issue.  And on the whole, there was continuous
 importance attached to capacity-building, our cross-cutting priority. Let me go
 more into the details with regard to program and agenda. Many commentators
 emphasized the need for the schedule of the meeting and the speaker list to be
 ready much earlier than in the past two years.  It was also stressed that there
 was a need to explain better the difference between the different kind of
 sessions. There were different views on the issue of parallel sessions.  Some
 thought there was need for fewer parallel sessions, whereas other thought we
 should be very liberal in this regard. One proposal called for workshops to be
 held in advance of all the main session. On the whole, there was a great
 emphasis on the importance of remote communication and called for more efforts
 to be made in this regard. With regard to the main sessions, there was a
 general agreement that we should focus more on specific issues instead of the
 broad strokes, as we did in the past two years.  And we should also make a
 better effort to link the cross-cutting priorities to the main sessions. Again
 -- I am tempted to say, not in the past two years -- there was a general sense
 that the number of speakers should be kept much smaller, and also that we
 should make more efforts to enable broad participation for participants. With
 regard to workshops, there, the dividing line between the different views was,
 should we have as many as possible or as few as necessary.  Should they be
 diverse or restricted to the main themes?  Should we limit the number of
 workshops sponsored by one organization? With regard to the open forum, there
 was the -- the point was made that there should be a multiplicity of viewpoints
 expressed in an open forum.  There should be clearly identified speakers' list
 and it should not be branded as having IGF support. With regard to best
 practice forums, there were different views on the usefulness of this format. 
 While some thought it was a useful format, others thought that best practices
 should be integrated into the main sessions. With regard to the dynamic
 coalitions, there's a general feeling that we need to further discuss the
 status of dynamic coalitions and the linkage to the IGF. Other comments that
 were made related to the reporting-back sessions.  At last February's meeting,
 the MAG came to the conclusion that there was not much merit in having these
 sessions.  But one comment actually emphasized the importance of these
 sessions, as they were translated into all U.N. languages and allowed all
 participants to get the flavor of what was discussed outside the main session
 room. And then there were comments that the IGF should be able to make policy
 recommendation, which it has not done so far.  And the IGF should create
 working groups to explore complex emerging issues. And, finally, with regard to
 the format, there were two broad options.  On the one hand, to make maximum use
 of the facilities; and on the other hand, to have a more programmatic use of
 facilities, i.e., fewer workshops, fewer parallel events, and also more time
 for networking. If you allow, Mr. Chairman, I would maybe also have a few
 comments on the workshops. We received the proposals for workshops.  And on
 Thursday last week, we put up the list of workshops on our Web site. The
 deadline for submitting the proposals was the 30th of April.  However, we did
 have some technical hiccups, and some proposals that were submitted within the
 deadline were not uploaded when we first posted the list.  And I was just today
 informed that a workshop proposed by WIPO, proposed in time, was still not up. 
 So there may be other workshops like that.  And please let us know, should they
 not have been up, and if they have been submitted in time. Within the MAG,
 there was also some talk whether or not we should extend the deadline, as some
 thought the deadline was a bit short from the last meeting in February to the
 30th of April, but that this is something we can obviously discuss during the
 next few days. All in all, we have around 100 proposals.  We asked all
 proponents to choose the category, the five main themes, and the two
 cross-cutting priorities, as well as a category "others." We shifted two or
 three proposals from "others" to "development."  The vast majority, however, is
 listed on the basis of self-classification.  On the whole, the existing main
 themes and priorities seem to have stood well the test of time.  Based on the
 proposals that were submitted, there seems to be no need for adding a new main
 theme, and most of the proposals listed under "others" could also fit into the
 existing themes. We made available some copies of the list of proposals at the
 back of the room.  Let me briefly go through the various categories.  Under
 "access," we received 13 proposals, which, prima facie, cover nine issue
 clusters. Under "diversity," we have nine proposals, which prima facie cover
 eight issue clusters. On "openness," there are 13 proposals, which cover,
 again, prima facie, 12 issue clusters. On "security," 21 proposals, which cover
 prima facie 11 issue clusters. "Critical Internet resources" we have 13
 proposals, which prima facie, covered ten issue clusters. On "development," we
 have nine proposals, which also cover nine separate issue clusters. And the
 same for "capacity-building," where we have six proposals for six issue
 clusters. Under "others," we have 17, which seem to cover 15 separate issue
 clusters. In total, there seem to be 80 separate issue clusters addressed by
 these proposals. You may recall that at the meeting in Rio, we had about 82
 slots for events outside the main session. In Hyderabad, in theory, we have
 similar capacity as regards meeting facilities.  So that is something, I
 suppose, we will have to discuss. A number of workshops focus on similar
 issues, albeit from different perspectives, and involving different
 stakeholders. An issue which today's consultation could provide useful input is
 the balance of workshops between different themes, or, in other terms, whether
 there is need for some kind of balance between these themes. So, for example,
 does it matter that on the security, now we have 20 proposals, and on the
 diversity, just eight?  Or should we approach this question the other way
 around, take the number of proposals as an indicator for the importance
 stakeholders attach to one given category? It is also hoped that some workshop
 proponents will take the opportunity of these meetings in the framework of the
 WSIS cluster of events to merge their proposals, and the consultations today
 are also part of this process. And then, of course, the MAG will meet tomorrow
 and the day after to review the whole program, and, of course, also address the
 selection of workshops and the possible merging of workshops. I hope that
 today's meeting is -- gives an important input into this selection process. 
 While it might not be possible to discuss the quality of individual proposals
 in this setting, I hope, nevertheless, for guidance on a more general level.
 And with this, I conclude my introductory remarks.  Thank you. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  
 Thank you.  The floor is open. May I invite Slovenia. 
 
 >>SLOVENIA:  Thank you,
 Chair.  I'm speaking on behalf of the European Union as representing the
 presidency of i.t. Now, the European Union would like to thank you for holding
 these consultations.  And we consider it an important step for the next IGF
 meeting in India. We congratulate our friend, Nitin Desai, for his
 reappointment as chairman, and the MAG, whose mandate was recently extended by
 the U.N. Secretary-General. The European Union would also like to express once
 again its gratitude to the government of India for its decision to host the IGF
 meeting and for having provided valuable information of the logistics of the
 Hyderabad meeting during the consultation in February this year. For the
 upcoming meeting in Hyderabad, the European Union believes that future-oriented
 themes and development aspects are the two areas which would be appropriate to
 consider when selecting elements of the agenda.  The development dimension of
 the Internet is particularly important for us in the European Union. The
 Internet has become a tool for development.  So in this context, we welcome the
 focus of the IGF on the next billion Internet users, as we have put it.  And we
 also see added value in addressing in the IGF framework practical and
 future-oriented issues such as opportunities and challenges presented by for
 instance, Web 2.0 and the Internet of things that are going to be of importance
 to millions of Internet users around the world. We also see all the things from
 a perspective of stability of the Internet of much importance. The E.U.
 welcomes the draft program outline for the Hyderabad meeting presented on the
 home page of the Internet Governance Forum.  There is merit in building on the
 experience of previous meetings and in avoiding repetition.  In particular, we
 highly appreciate that the informal, interactive, multistakeholder character
 remains the main guiding principle of the forum.  We are convinced that the
 next IGF meeting in India will continue this tradition of progress and steps
 forward, also in practical terms, as the Brazil meeting demonstrated. Further
 improvement of practical arrangements can maximize the use of our time in
 India.  The European Union, therefore, welcomes all proposals aimed at reducing
 duplication of debates.  We consider today's meeting as a good starting point
 for substantive preparations of the IGF.  The E.U. will take good account of
 today's discussion. It is of importance for the preparation of the India
 meeting that the renewed MAG starts work without delay. Let me remind you that
 the European Union would like to see the renewed MAG to retain its balanced
 composition and operate on a basis of maximum transparency, clarity, and the
 flow of information around all the stakeholders. Mr. Chairman, in conclusion,
 once again, the European Union would like to stress its unwavering support for
 the IGF, as a forum for multistakeholder dialogue and our strong commitment to
 continue to work with all stakeholders to continue the continuation of its
 success. Thank you, Chairman. 

 >>CHAIR DESAI:   (inaudible). 

 >>UNITED STATES:  
 The United States reiterates its commitment to the results of (Audio cutting
 out). 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   One moment. 

 >>:Sound. 

 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Yeah, go ahead.
 
 >>UNITED STATES:   We -- we believe that it is critical to ensure that all
 stakeholders from the Internet community continue to participate in the event
 and its planning.  The IGF should offer an opportunity for leading Internet
 experts from around the world to share experiences and offer visions. Topics
 such as the free flow of information, capacity-building, expanded Internet
 access, cybersecurity, spam, and privacy continue to be the key items on the
 IGF agenda. The United States continues to believe that the IGF should be a
 truly multistakeholder event.  Therefore, it is important that processes and
 procedures be as transparent as possible. We note that the WSIS Tunis
 conclusion that the IGF should have a lightweight and decentralized structure,
 which we understand to mean that the IGF should be minimal in terms of
 procedures and avoid burdensome preparatory processes.  The secretariat should
 continue to be small, with the mission to support the smooth functioning of the
 IGF and to facilitate broad participation in the events. Finally, maintaining
 the multistakeholder bureau is extremely important to act as a program
 committee and to offer input as to discussion topics, speakers, and format. The
 promise of the IGF, an open and inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders of
 the international Internet community to discuss critical issues concerning the
 future of the Internet, is viewed by the United States as a positive
 development. We fully support the WSIS Tunis conclusion that the IGF would be
 constituted as a neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding process. We understand
 that the MAG has a difficult task with all of these proposals for workshops and
 format.  And we assume that the MAG will not be able to make everyone happy in
 the short run.  However, we have confidence that the hard work that the MAG and
 the IGF does now will assure an outcome which is satisfactory and positive for
 all. We also would like to express our confidence in the MAG and the IGF, as
 well as our Indian hosts, that we are assured that the next IGF will be
 successful as the previous. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   China.
 
 >>CHINA:   Thank you.  On behalf of the Chinese delegation, I should like to
 thank the government of India for organizing and preparing for the next
 meeting.  We are sure that with the assistance of the government and people of
 India, the meeting will be crowned with success. As to the agenda items, we
 think that the draft agenda agreed at the February meeting is a good one.  The
 two themes on the agenda -- expanding elements and managing Internet -- they
 attach importance to the requirements of the next one billion Internet users. 
 There are very important issues, such as management of Internet resources and
 Internet service. All of this is important to implement the terms of reference
 given by the Tunisia conference and promote a democratic, transparent,
 multilateral Internet governance process. As regards the items on the agenda,
 our government would like to give more details and opinions on this subject
 later. Thank you. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI: May I ask people to comment on the -- last
 time when we were discussing this, we had to try to see whether we could
 organize the main sessions of our two broad themes. The first one was in terms
 of universalization of the Internet, but as Markus pointed out, some people are
 a little concerned about the phrase "universalization" and would prefer to talk
 in terms of "expanding" the Internet. And the second theme was in terms of
 "managing" the Internet, where again some people prefer to use the term "using"
 the Internet. In a sense, the phrase "reaching the next billion" tries to
 capture both of these dimensions. May I ask people to comment on these -- this
 aspect of the structuring, broad structuring? Also, on the questions which
 Markus has raised about sessions, the format for main sessions, the number of
 workshops, the Best Practice Forum, the open forum, and so on. We also had a
 brief discussion last time about what I'd call a debate session.  Actually in
 India, we have some television programs which are organized as debates and
 they're actually -- it's called a big fight, where you put people with opposing
 points of view and see what comes out of all that. But I notice in the comments
 that have come, people have some questions and doubts about the value of this,
 as part of the main program, and somebody may do it and decide, that's a
 different story. So I think I would like to invite comments on this also.  We
 now turn to ICC/BASIS.  Ayesha? 
 
 >>ICC/BASIS:  Thank you, Chair.  I will address
 each of the questions that you just posed.  I have a few general comments that
 I'd also like to make. On behalf of the Global Business Community of the
 International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative, Business Action to
 Support the Information Society -- BASIS -- which includes, as many of you
 know, companies and associations from all sectors and around the world.  I'm
 pleased to provide these general comments on the draft program and the schedule
 for the IGF in Hyderabad, and just note that ICC/BASIS has submitted a
 comprehensive written contribution that is both on the IGF and ICC Web sites as
 well as in the back of the room, to provide greater detail on our priorities.
 ICC/BASIS members support the evolved approach that's being taken to the draft
 program and it responds to many stakeholders' feedback that the IGF in India
 should build on the IGF in Athens in 2006 and in Rio in 2007, and to continue
 to provide an open and informative forum for discussion on Internet Governance
 issues among all stakeholders. It is essential that the IGF continue the
 successful multistakeholder approach in all aspects of its preparations and the
 events. On the basic structure for Hyderabad, ICC/BASIS members are encouraged
 by the new approach for this meeting, and the emphasis on interaction in all
 sessions.  The IGF offers a unique opportunity for discussion and exchange, and
 the focus should be more on interaction with and by the audience in the main
 sessions as well as other events. In order to build on the previous IGFs,
 ICC/BASIS encourages concretization and announcement of partnerships that have
 been launched and commitments to be part of the IGF in India.  The IGF is
 stimulating many exciting initiatives and they should be captured in the
 program and highlighted in a primary session.  Such a session would capture the
 developments in the past year and the discussion about useful partnerships and
 alliances would also help identify people and initiatives that could be
 replicated in other regions or for other issues. We continue to believe that a
 session highlighting the valuable activities and partnerships that have been
 made possible by the IGF is a solid outcome.  This could be one of the
 reporting sessions, for instance, that is devoted to announcing these
 partnerships and initiatives which may not be taking the dynamic coalition
 label. We also continue to believe that the IGF provides value in bringing
 together diverse stakeholders to discuss ongoing and emerging issues together,
 and that negotiated outcomes would detract from the unique opportunity that the
 IGF provides for this kind of dialogue. On the main sessions, we believe that
 the alternate proposed schedule included in the MAG summary from February and
 the document that's been posted is a good starting point but it will need
 further clarification and detail. The main sessions are an important part of
 the multistakeholder discussions that raise the range of viewpoints on these
 topics and offer a focal point for that topic. At the same time, the schedule
 should take into consideration the experiences of the past two IGFs and ensure
 that the main sessions are not in conflict with any -- or very few -- parallel
 events. Part of the objective should be to increase interaction in the main
 sessions as well as attendance.  We've made specific suggestions in our written
 contribution which I just referred to, and these would help to ensure that the
 sessions are truly adding value for participants.  A few of these suggestions
 are to focus the main session discussions on specific questions or issues, and
 to integrate best practices and lessons learned instead of general
 presentations on high-level issues. Related to that on best practice forums,
 our approach is that the main session should really integrate best practices
 and there may be very few cases where a separate Best Practice Forum would be
 useful.  We would suggest limiting the number of best practice forums and being
 very careful about the selection of those forums. In addition, the main
 sessions will be more interactive if we vigilantly limit the number of
 panelists and their remarks.  As other stakeholders have noted, the respondence
 format was not a very productive approach in terms of bringing more interaction
 with the audience last time.  We would suggest that we increase the time
 allocated to interactive discussion with the participants in the room and
 remote participants. And we also suggest and support simplifying the
 descriptions for the main sessions, confirming them much earlier than in 2007
 and selecting the topics for the sessions on the criteria that they're likely
 to generate useful interaction with the audience. Regarding the debate
 sessions, we feel that they would be duplicative given the interactive format
 envisioned for the main sessions. Regarding reporting sessions, we support the
 clarified -- pardon me. Regarding the reporting sessions, we do believe that
 they have been useful.  We have offered specific comments about how to limit
 the time for the reports, the kind of report template that would be useful, and
 I refer back to our written contribution for greater detail on that topic.
 Regarding the main sessions and the approach to the titles, we support the
 clarified titles that have been suggested for the sessions on "using" the
 Internet and "expanding" the Internet. On open forums, we believe that there
 may be some specific open forums that would be a useful part of the program and
 again, those should be carefully selected. On the cross-cutting theme of
 capacity-building, we believe that the discussions in all the main sessions
 should emphasize the specific issues that are of concern to developing country
 stakeholders within Internet Governance topics and the human and institutional
 capacity-building measures that are necessary to strengthen the involvement of
 all stakeholders in Internet Governance issues and institutions. We have also
 noted that digital literacy and I.T. training should receive more attention in
 the discussions at the IGF in Hyderabad, and specifically in those two areas
 the policy and governance approaches that promote skills development and other
 resources necessary to get the world online should be a part of these
 discussions to emphasize the cross-cutting development and capacity-building
 themes. Briefly, on emerging issues, we are among the stakeholders who continue
 to believe that the session in Rio was a very good model and it should be used
 again in Hyderabad.  It was very interactive and a valuable opportunity to
 raise issues that were not discussed in other main sessions.  In India, we
 would recommend that the emerging issues session put greater emphasis on issues
 on the horizon and look to the future. In closing, Chair, we would like to join
 others to congratulate you on your confirmation as chair of the IGF
 multistakeholder Advisory Group and to express our appreciation for your
 leadership and the tremendous efforts of Mr. Markus Kummer and the entire IGF
 Secretariat.  Thank you. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Thank you.  Could I turn to
 
 ITAA/WITSA, followed by APC, followed by ITU. 
 
 >>WITSA:  Thank you, Chair.  My
 name is Marilyn Cade.  I'm the chair of the Global Public Policy Committee at
 ITAA and I offer brief comments that summarize a written contribution made by
 ITAA. ITAA is also the Secretariat to an association known as WITSA, the World
 IT Services Alliance that represents 69 associations, largely from developing
 countries. As others have said, we are pleased to congratulate Chairman Desai,
 and to also express our appreciation to Markus Kummer and the Secretariat for
 their excellent work and support.  We thank the Government of India, and it is
 appropriate, I think, to also thank the government of Greece and the government
 of Brazil for having worked together to ensure that the first two IGFs were so
 successful, and give us a platform upon which to continue to build. ITAA
 believes, as we have stated before, that a primary emphasis in the work that we
 do in the IGF must support and include the perspectives and approaches that, in
 particular, address the interests and concerns of developing countries while
 ensuring that the interests of all stakeholders are taken into account. We
 believe the main sessions provide a critical contribution to enhancing the
 shared understanding of all participants, and we do support the commitment to
 minimize conflicts of workshops and open forums and best practice sessions with
 the main session, but we also think that it is very important to take into
 account the strong interest of many participants in having the opportunity to
 actively participate, through the workshop and open forum and best practice
 models. So we realize that the MAG will have a balance to address. Where
 possible, it will be helpful to minimize the conflicts. We also think that the
 addition of workshop and forum reports to the meeting report will be an
 additional resource for interested stakeholders, and we do support the
 requirement of accurate written reports from workshops, open forums, and best
 practice sessions, that reflect not only the panelists' point of view, but
 reflect fully the interaction that happens with the participants in those
 events. We also continue to endorse the important role of the real-time
 transcription that is provided not only here in this session, but also to the
 main sessions, and believe that it continues to support other means of remote
 participation and to serve as a record for those who wish to know what happens
 in those sessions. It is, of course, important to maintain a balance of
 multistakeholder representation in the MAG, and also to continue to work to
 increase the transparency to the greatest extent possible, and at this time we
 applaud the efforts that have been taken already within the MAG to offer a
 snapshot of understanding of the dialogue and discussions that are taking place
 there. We, too, support the idea of a lightweight Secretariat that is
 structural but does not move into becoming a U.N.-like bureau.  We believe that
 the Secretariat should be afforded the needed resources to fulfill its role,
 and at this time I will pause to congratulate again the Secretariat for the
 excellent work that they have done. Our view on best practice forums may be
 slightly different than others.  We've found them very helpful.  We've also
 found that they represent a unique opportunity of participation that is
 slightly different from the workshops, and does allow a deeper understanding of
 the experiences that have taken place in a particular area. So we do believe
 that the best practices forums should be continued, but we think that the open
 forums and the best practice forums must also adhere to a schedule of
 commitment in providing the names of their speakers and in detailing the
 discussions that they propose to address, so that all who are planning to
 participate -- whether in person or remotely -- are able to plan their
 participation accordingly. On the themes that ITAA supports, we suggest that
 the focus on "expanding" the Internet, reaching the next billion, is very
 important and we see several topics that could fit under that, including, but
 not limited to, the issues of e-waste, IG environmental issues concerned with
 the use of ICTs and the growing extension of ICTs, but also the issues related
 to user empowerment, user education, et cetera. We support the theme "Using the
 Internet" because we believe it is a broader theme than "managing the
 Internet." We con- -- we, of course, support preserving the multistakeholder of
 panelists and participants and seeking further ways to further audience
 participation, both on-site and remotely. We realize it is a challenge and a
 critical objective, and we think that there needs to be further discussion and
 efforts made with those who moderate all sessions, whether they are workshops,
 open session -- open forums, best practice forums, or main sessions, to ensure
 that the moderator fully understands and develops techniques to ensure,
 encourage participation from the participants in the room. We do not support
 the idea of a debate, and we may be one of the commenters who spoke most
 strongly about this.  Our view of the IGF is that it offers an opportunity for
 the exchange of views.  The word "debate" to most people connotes establishing
 sides, rather than sharing perspectives and trying to reach shared
 understanding, so our view would be that we think we should propose a dialogue
 as opposed to a debate about issues. I may have other comments to make later,
 but at this time this ends my comments, Mr. Chair. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  I must thank
 the two previous speakers for their references to the lightweight Secretariat. 
 Since I'm under pressure to reduce weight, I think that's always an issue, but
 I shall convey that to my doctors, because we are -- [Microphone feedback]
 Good.  Now I have APC, ITU, and ETNO. 
 
 >> APC:  Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.  I'm
 Willie Currie, speaking on behalf of the Association for Progressive
 Communications, APC. APC supports the proposed structure of the program for
 Hyderabad as consisting of the two main themes and one debate. The -- we feel
 the two themes of "expanding" the Internet and connecting the next billion and
 "managing" and "using" the Internet do capture the kind of spectrum of issues
 we would like to see covered in a main theme. But we also feel that the debate
 with respect to security, privacy, and openness, is very important in that the
 main themes do not appear on the surface to include openness. And we might have
 some further remarks on that later. Regarding the name "universalization" seems
 to me to be a term that's translated from another language, not something that
 native speakers of English would necessarily use.  And in that sense, we would
 prefer that the -- the theme to be called "expanding the Internet." We've been
 doing the math on the two alternatives, A and B, and we strongly support
 alternative A, because we simply can't see how some 80 workshops could be
 accommodated into alternative B. There's simply not enough time in alternative
 B as it is reflected in the synthesis paper to accommodate the range of
 workshops that have been put forward. Just on a point of consistency, we note
 that alternative A does not have the main session on "managing" or "using" the
 Internet, which is reflected on day 2 in alternative B.  And I think that also
 has implications on the time and scheduling of the programs. We feel that the
 two main sessions on "expanding" the Internet and "managing" or "using" the
 Internet need to be thought through a bit more clearly.  For example, it's not
 clear what the difference is between the opening session on "expanding" the
 Internet and the thematic overview session on "expanding" the Internet. And one
 option may be to have the opening session for each main theme take on the role
 of the thematic overview for the sub-workshops that are linked to the main
 theme. On the issue of the -- including a debate as part of the program, we
 feel firstly that having, as I mentioned before, that the -- the topic of
 security, privacy and openness is important because it creates a space for
 openness to be on the main plenary agenda, and secondly, a debate is a common
 format in public discourse.  Calling it a dialogue is moot.  It doesn't really
 make much difference. I think the point that is important about a debate is
 that it can highlight where there are differences, and in that way perhaps
 enable the audience to understand what the issues are that are at stake in
 something like the relationship between security, privacy, and openness. The
 number of workshops has been raised as an issue.  We see there are more than a
 hundred workshops that have been proposed and that there is a capacity for 80.
 One of the criteria, perhaps, for selection should be a limit on the number of
 workshops put forward by one single organization. And a second criteria might
 be to look more closely at the clusters of issues and to what extent those can
 be combined. That concludes our initial remarks and we would also like to
 congratulate Chairman Nitin Desai on his appointment as chairperson of the MAG,
 and thank Markus Kummer, the Secretariat and the MAG for its excellent
 preparation of the program.  Thank you. 
 
 >> ITU:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good
 morning.  Good morning, everybody.  We believe that it's important that the
 structure stimulates international cooperation, and enhanced cooperation, and
 the proposed structure we believe does that. There are emerging issues, and we
 are actually proposing one ourselves, but we believe that the current structure
 can cope with emerging issues and we can incorporate them. We're concerned
 about the number of workshops that have been proposed, and clearly we need to
 amalgamate these as much as possible. This is going to be difficult, perhaps,
 but we believe that that's key, really, to ensuring the success of the next
 forum. So encouraging partnerships we believe is the message that we would like
 to bring, and as an example of that, since our last meeting, I'm pleased to
 inform you that ITU and UNESCO have agreed to work together on several
 WSIS-related activities, and just to outline three, we are promoting the
 multilingual Internet, we will develop together an internationalized Country
 Code Top Level Domain reference table to facilitate the development of
 internationalized Internet domain names. Secondly, we are working together in
 the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability, which we initiated at
 our previous meeting. And I'm pleased to say that this dynamic coalition is
 living up to its name of being "dynamic" because it already has successfully
 organized a workshop addressing the U.N. convention on the rights of persons
 with disabilities which was held at ITU a few weeks ago. And thirdly, we are
 going to work together to organize and solicit participation in two workshops,
 one on multilingualism and the other on accessibility in Hyderabad. ITU has
 also initiated a dynamic coalition on Internet and climate change, and I'm
 pleased to say that we've been joined in that as founding partners by the
 ministry of internal affairs and communications of Japan, the global
 e-sustainability initiative, BT from the U.K., and Deutsche Telekom. And this
 will build on the very successful symposium that was held in Kyoto last month,
 and a follow-up symposium which we are organizing with BT in London on the 17th
 and 18th of June.  This is open to anyone to participate free of charge. So we
 have, at the back of the room, a joint statement from ITU and UNESCO to
 illustrate how closely we're working together.  We're even sitting together in
 this meeting.  And also in the back of the room is the text on the dynamic
 coalition on Internet and climate change. To promote -- I might just inform you
 that to promote implementation of IPv6, ITU is organizing a workshop on this in
 Geneva, provisionally for the 4th and 5th of September, and I'd just like to
 finish by inviting and encouraging additional partners in these activities.  As
 I said, this is really key to the success of the next forum, so we invite
 intergovernmental, nongovernmental, and private sector to join with us,
 especially ITU and UNESCO, and look forward to developing these ideas and
 trying to merge some of the proposals during this meeting.  Thank you,
 Chairman. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  May I just comment on the last point that you raised.
 As Markus' point -- the synthesis paper points out, there have been some
 suggestions on trying to integrate the connection with sustainable development
 a little bit more in the work of the IGF.  Now, it's not entirely clearly to me
 how, and I'm not going to -- I'm going to stay pretty quiet on this because I'm
 rather heavily involved on the other side of the equation also, which is on
 climate change and sustainable development, so I don't wish to inject my
 personal sort of concerns and interests in this, but there are -- there is some
 suggestion. Any comments or reflections on where it could fit in, either in the
 main sessions or elsewhere, are most welcome.  Will it be under "using" the
 Internet?  Is that the correct dimension under which one can talk about some of
 these issues?  Is it probably better to handle it separately in a special event
 or workshop? Any reflections that you have on the suggestions which have come
 from some stakeholders on emphasizing this aspect would be most welcome, and I
 raise this because ITU has just, you know -- has a program in this area, and of
 course we would very much welcome, you know, their association and interest in
 this whole exercise, if we were to pursue this in IGF. I have ETNO and then
 GIIC, and then I have [inaudible] from the NGO group, and then India. ETNO?
 
 >>ETNO:  Thank you, Chair.  I speak on behalf of ETNO, which is the Association
 of European telecoms network operators.  ETNO welcomes the fact that the IGF
 Secretariat, in light of the discussions which took place during the February
 consultations in Geneva, the written contributions sent by early May, and
 discussions amongst the MAG members and other contributors are presented as an
 output into the second open consultation paper. ETNO would like to encourage
 all parties involved in the preparations of the Hyderabad meeting to work
 towards finalizing all the details by September 2008. On our behalf, we have
 submitted a written contribution on the program and schedule, and in this
 intervention, would like to highlight a few of the issues referring mainly to
 substance rather than the structure of the meeting. We support the view that
 the existing themes continue to provide a good basis to focus the
 contributions.  The term "universalization" of the Internet is unknown to many,
 and it is not clear what it implies.  ETNO proposes that the new focused theme
 is called "Expanding the Internet:  How to reach the next billion." We see that
 under this title, the Athens and Rio themes of access and diversity fit
 perfectly and we also believe that the theme of critical Internet resources is
 more suitable for discussion under this focused theme, as it's almost
 impossible to discuss the expansion of the Internet without referring to
 critical Internet resources. Regarding the title of topics under the new
 focused themes, some of them are very vague and very general.  In fact, it is
 not clear at all what implications for development policy and arrangements for
 Internet Governance are about, why they fit under the respective focused theme
 and what they will be discussed. We urge for more specific topics and more
 balanced titles that are understood by all. ETNO also supports the view that
 balance across the themes is an important element. Regarding critical Internet
 resources, ETNO would like to comment that the proposed topics for critical
 Internet resources seem to be very focused on IP addressing issues.  ETNO
 believes that the issue of transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is becoming extremely
 important, and awareness needs to be raised. As regards the adoption of IPv6,
 any move in that direction has to be industry led and it can only occur when
 the industry determines that the required drivers are in place. Governance
 issues related to IP address management should build upon the current practice
 and the bottom-up approach. Consequently, the focus under this topic should be
 expanded to give a broader perspective to some of the important topics that
 need to be addressed, building on current best practice. As regards the
 schedule, ETNO prefers the alternative schedule B and considers that a good
 starting point. Many of our comments have already been incorporated into the
 synthesis paper.  However, we can't avoid stressing our concern about the
 reporting-back sessions, which are not included in the draft program.  We urge
 that these meetings are reintroduced in the schedule and that there is at least
 one reporting-back session per day. As we have suggested in the past, the
 reporting back for the main sessions should be done by the IGF secretariat, as
 it can guarantee a well-balanced overview of what was discussed. As for the
 reporting back of all other meetings, we suggest that there is more structure,
 with a strict format that can be followed by all. ETNO would like to
 congratulate Chairman Desai and add thanks to Mr. Kummer and the Secretariat
 and the MAG for their efforts and the excellent work that they have done. Mr.
 Chair, time doesn't really allow me to go through all the issues that ETNO
 would like to comment on, but I would urge those interested to consult our
 contribution that is posted on the IGF site. Thank you. 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Thank
 you. I have GIIC, followed by I.T. for Change, Parminder Singh, and then India.
 GIIC. 
 
 >>GIIC:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  My name is Dan O'Neill, and I am the
 executive director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission.   The
 GIIC would first like to congratulate the chair on its renewed post and we look
 forward to continuing to work closely with the chair as well as the
 secretariat. The GIIC has been a strong supporter of the IGF process, starting
 in 2006 in the Athens meeting, continuing through Rio, and we look forward to
 being involved in Hyderabad. The GIIC believes that the current structure of
 the IGF, the mix between the main sessions are able to handle emerging issues
 in a way that is satisfactory to private industry. As stated earlier, in terms
 of the issue of dialogue versus debate, the GIIC is a strong proponent of
 dialogue, where we can reach an understanding between differing positions. In
 terms of the format and structure for Hyderabad, there's clearly some stress
 with more than 100 proposed workshops, yet capacity for merely 80.  We'd like
 to minimize the conflicts as much as possible between workshops and main
 sessions and do see an opportunity for some reduction in the number of
 workshops. The GIIC is looking forward to the meeting in Hyderabad, where it
 has proposed to sponsor a workshop titled "ICTs in a Viable, Sustainable
 Internet, Another Challenge for Connecting the Next Billion Users." The GIIC at
 a recent meeting issued its declaration which assessed the contributions that
 information and communication technologies can make to help reduce the burden
 on the environment, with a focus on the actions that are required by ICT sector
 stakeholders. It is clear to the GIIC that addressing the environmental impact
 of ICT is of critical importance if we wish to make the Internet available to
 the next billion users. Without addressing this issue, the energy resources
 will not be available to achieve this important objective. The GIIC workshop
 proposal for Hyderabad, in conjunction with other multistakeholders, is
 designed to focus on this narrow but critically important area where the use
 and function of the Internet can have a significant impact on our environment.
 We look forward to working with the IGF in planning for Hyderabad, and thank
 you very much. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Thank you. (inaudible) followed by India, then
 the Russian Federation, Council of Europe.  And Nippon Keidanren. 
 
 >>IT FOR
 CHANGE:  Thank you, Chair.  I'll restrict my comments to the main thematic
 issues of the main sessions which the chair has asked for, and I would also
 like, if possible, for a process point, to discuss issues within a certain
 segments so that we can make better progress and see the different sides of the
 same issue. The main theme, which is the debate between whether it should be
 "universalization of the Internet" or "expanding the Internet," I'm surprised
 to hear that there are repeated mentions that this "universalization" term is
 unknown or confusing, because it's probably best known in telecom policy, when
 we say universal service obligations and universal service points, and I
 understand most countries have some kind of universal obligations in their
 telecom policies, which directly relates to Internet.  And therefore I can't
 understand how it would be an unknown term here. And in the realm of
 development, I'm not sure whether India can count as a native English-speaking
 country, as my colleague Willie pointed out that the "universalization" term
 does not look appropriate, but in developmental parlance, universalization of
 primary education, of access to basic health, et cetera, it is very widely
 used.  And in that sense, making the Internet and development connection, the
 "universalization" term looks very appropriate.  It's a very normal term,
 policy term, with normative implications and is widely used in development
 parlance. And as for the alternative term, the "expanding the Internet" theme,
 "expanding" is normally used in terms of expanding opportunities, expanding,
 for instance, economic opportunities, and is at a different normative level
 than universalization term.  And this should be kept in mind. Again, I'm not
 really convinced that "the next billion," "reaching the next billion" term does
 cover both sides of the equation, because it has typically a private sector
 background.  It's a market strategy of looking at the next horizon of the
 market.  And the background of the way that term is normally understood should
 be kept in mind, because when we are talking of policy implications, it's
 always important to understand which are the next billion, those who can pay
 for it or those who need it most?  I think the normative implications of these
 all terms are very different, and we should stick to the term universalization
 "of the Internet."  We should also recognize that the U.N. IGF brings to the
 I.G. arena issues of social justice and equity, which probably need to be
 anchored there.  And these issues are important policy issues which we should
 stress. And as importantly, there's another aspect of the "universalization"
 term which goes beyond access.  And I quote Mr. Desai's speech at the Delhi
 ICANN meeting when he said, "We should interrogate what other implications of
 the universalization of the Internet for the themes we have," which are the
 themes beyond access theme.  What if the Internet is used not by a billion
 people, but by six billion people, and what if everybody, every person in
 India, has an Internet address or has an e-mail address?  How does it impinge
 on openness, on security, on issues of access we already spoke about, on
 diversity, and on management of critical Internet resources?  The fact that we
 start looking at Internet as something which should be universalized has
 implications on all layers of the Internet governance, and therefore that term
 has a unique and a different meaning and should be preserved. I also should
 like to mention the fact that the description under the "universalization"
 theme mentions only one side of the kind of policy options which are available.
  It speaks about the role of entrepreneurship.  And I did see in the runup to
 the Rio meeting from the agenda there were a lot of issues, a lot of mentions
 on -- of community-based and public-sector networks which disappeared.  And we
 would like to point out that these terms are -- they were in the financing part
 of the WSIS documents.  And these policy options should also be included and we
 should not only be talking about the entrepreneurship options. As to the
 managing the Internet and using the Internet issue, I'm not able to clearly see
 what would be covered under using the Internet.  I would be able to comment if
 I have some kind of clarity about it. They are really different, managing the
 Internet is different from using the Internet, and there can be two option of
 trying to cover the same area. And I do read an observation that managing the
 Internet makes it look like the Internet is not being managed properly.  But
 that would extend to the term "Internet governance" as well, because that would
 make it look like the Internet is not being governed well.  But I think this is
 quite an untenable argument. Managing the Internet is, in fact, a watered-down
 version of governing the Internet.  And either of them would be fine.  But it
 can't be replaced by using the Internet, because the set of issues are very
 different. A last point about what the chair spoke about, making the
 sustainable development connection. As much as we all believe in the values of
 sustainable development, I'm not sure in the circumstances in the IGF whether
 development and Internet connection has not been clarified and has many
 problematic aspects, which I did briefly mention above, we should extend it
 into newer areas without adequate clarification of what really are we moving
 towards and not just choose areas which look like some hot topics at present. 
 And I would look forward to somebody making a clear description of what is the
 kind of connection they are looking at and what does "sustainable development"
 mean in terms of the IGF connection before we move toward that direction. 
 Thank you, Chair. 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   India. 
 
 >>INDIA:   Sir, I would like to thank
 the various delegates who expressed their support to the government of India
 for organizing the (inaudible).  As the host country, we look forward to the
 support and the guidance of all the delegates, members of the civil society,
 and the multistakeholders, and the secretariat of the IGF, to enable us to keep
 the IGF going in the manner in which it was successful at Athens and Rio. I
 have a few points on the themes, primarily on the universalization of the
 Internet. Mr. Parminder Singh has articulated the concept very succinctly. 
 Here I'd like to say that whether it is a top-down approach or it is a
 bottom-up approach, we need to be clear.  Reaching the next billion seems to be
 a top-down approach, while universalization connotes a bottom-up approach. When
 we are bridging the digital divide and also having the concept of inclusive
 growth enshrined, "universalization of the Internet" sounds more appropriate to
 the spirit of it all. The second factor on the use of Internet or using the
 Internet, we could use.  We could also abuse.  But, then, there should be
 rational use. I think the word "manage" fits in the bill for a rational use. 
 Whether it is a domestic affair or international affairs, management or
 managing is the task that is expected of all.  So I think "managing the
 Internet" sounds very appropriate to the issue at stake. The third aspect of it
 relates to sustainable development.  We are entering into another arena
 altogether, environment, climate change, and sustainable development.  For the
 time being, the Internet, which is run across the fibers, does not gel well
 with the sustainable development issue per se. On the other themes, I would
 like to place emphasis on experience-sharing, because this is what a forum like
 the IGF is intended to achieve.  How have countries been able to leverage
 Internet or I.T. and ICT for development are all issues which are the outcome
 of the WSIS Tunis event. Capacity-building, as an earlier speaker had referred
 to, becomes very relevant.  ICT in development is relevant.  And, similarly,
 how I.T.'s role in economic growth has shaped many countries also becomes
 relevant. I would think that these are areas or topics that could be of special
 focus and interest at the third IGF. I would like to speak on a very general
 theme outside of the topics, with the permission of the chair. The government
 of India is taking adequate steps to see that the third IGF is a success.  We
 would like international participants to come to Hyderabad and share their
 experiences with us. All the logistic arrangements will be done by the
 government of India in accordance with the general principles of the host
 country agreement for which IGF will provide us all the necessary guidance. We
 would like to make the stay of delegates comfortable and are working backstage
 to see that it goes on at a clockwork precision. We would interact and liaise
 with the IGF secretariat so that more information could be put on the IGF Web
 site.  And things, I suppose, would perk up after the next visit of the
 delegation from the IGF secretariat to Hyderabad, when all the attendant
 activities would have been minutely scrutinized to know that they are in order.
 At this point in time, I do welcome the initiative taken by many organizations
 to have preparatory workshops, forums, conferences on themes relevant to the
 third IGF.  We in India have interacted with local NGOs, academics, and
 industry association to see that the string of activities is ongoing in the
 country vis-à-vis Internet, and the Internet Governance Forum issues are in the
 air.  Thank you, Chair. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Thank you.  Russian Federation.
 
 
 
 >>RUSSIAN FEDERATION:   Thank you, Chairman. The forthcoming forum in Hyderabad
 will be a very important aspects in moving forward issues on Internet use and
 governance.  This forum will be connected with the very important point that
 this forum should have practical results which everybody can use. As regards
 the Russian Federation, the issue of a stable, safe, and continuous functioning
 of the Internet is one of the most important.  All the other issues cannot be
 resolved until we discuss this theme. In this connection, it is of paramount
 importance to look at the functioning of the political infrastructure, the
 management of the domain name system, addresses, root serial numbers, and
 internationalization of the management use and governance of the Internet. The
 Russian Federation thinks it is essential to continue the discussions begun in
 Rio on this topic.  We believe that the organization and use of Internet at the
 international level and the governance of the Internet should have a
 multifaceted, transparent, and democratic nature, with the participation of
 governments, civil society, the private sector, and international
 organizations.  It should guarantee a fair sharing of resources, make it easier
 for all to have access, and ensure that there is stable and safe functioning of
 Internet, taking into account the multi language aspect of the users. It's of
 particular interest in this connection, as we see it, that we should look at
 the signing of the treaty next year between ICANN and the government of the
 U.S.A., taking into account the important role of this organization in Internet
 governance. I think it would be very interesting for all of us to find out
 about what this organization is doing and how it is developing in light of the
 fulfillment of the commitment of the Tunis summit and the implementation of the
 decisions of the Tunis summit. There's a further aspect of the functioning of
 the Internet, which is safety and the safeguarding of the Worldwide Web. As we
 see it, the main threats in this area are cybercrime, use of the Internet for
 terrorism, including cyber terrorism, also use of the Internet for tasks which
 are incompatible with international safety and security. As we see it, the task
 of developing and determining a sphere of information security and harmonizing
 of international legislation is a task which the forum also must address.  And
 this would make it far easier to develop international agreements and would
 facilitate development of international legislation on information safety and
 security. And my last point, as we see it, we must be more pragmatic in the
 work of the forum.  In this connection, perhaps looking at "G" of the Tunis
 program, paragraph "G," we believe that after the conclusion of the forum, that
 the community at large should be given specific recommendations and guidelines
 from the forum on the basic issues to be considered in the course of the
 forthcoming forum in the Hyderabad and subsequent sessions of the forum. Thank
 you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Thank you. May I now turn to Council of Europe, followed
 by Nippon Keidanren, and then Canada. 
 
 
 >>COUNCIL OF EUROPE:  Thank you,
 Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. In taking stock of past IGFs and now looking to
 Hyderabad, the Council of Europe secretariat believes that the IGF mandate is
 being increasingly fulfilled, in particular, in discussing public-policy
 issues.  Already, over the last six months, the Council of Europe has adopted
 three new human rights standard-setting instruments which have been inspired by
 IGF discussions. The IGF platform is also providing the Council of Europe with
 multiple opportunities to interface with IGOs and other bodies, and we are
 seeing real progress, we are seeing real progress in developing closer working
 relations with UNESCO, UNECE, UNDESA and OSCE.  We are seeing real progress in
 developing synergies with civil society groups such as APC and EDRE.  We are
 seeing real progress in striking up valuable cooperation with governments in
 signing and ratifying international conventions, such as the Convention on
 Cybercrime.  We are seeing real progress in establishing contacts with
 industry, such as ICANN, and in cooperating with others such as Google and
 Microsoft.  We are seeing real progress in establishing closer working
 relations with the regional working bodies, such as the EBU and EuroESPA. Mr.
 Chairman, we are convinced that the IGF is an invaluable source of ideas,
 expression, and, most importantly, a source of inspiration and progress for the
 Council of Europe as an IGO working with governments, civil society, and
 industry bodies, much of which has been greatly facilitated by your
 chairmanship and by the IGF secretariat, whose professionalism and commitment
 should be commended. Your action to include agenda perspective in the workshop
 templates is also an important sign that you are actively listening and
 reacting to concerns raised. Looking ahead and in view of the workshop
 proposals, the Council of Europe secretariat is keen to share its expertise and
 experience in order to promote a human rights culture for the Internet, an
 Internet in which its governance seeks to secure everyone's enjoyment of a
 maximum of rights and services, subject to a minimum of restrictions, an
 Internet which is wrapped in an umbrella of freedom of expression and
 information and which contains within it a strong will of law dimension, of
 cybersecurity, privacy and data protection, and the protection of children. Mr.
 Chairman, it is on this basis that we have submitted a number of specific
 drilled-down workshop proposals for Hyderabad, proposals on emerging issues
 such as positive online identity and freedom of expression.  Internet access
 provided by gatekeepers and the role of parliaments in fighting cybercrime. 
 Proposals which represent new Council of Europe standards on Internet filters
 and freedom of expression.  Proposals which intend to share Council of Europe
 concerns about the electronic footprint of children on the Internet and the
 need to remove and withdraw these traces. Proposals which propose tools for
 democracy in Internet governance.  Proposals which present new best practice,
 such as Council of Europe guidelines and cooperation between law enforcement
 and ISPs.  Proposals which aim to explore and develop the public service value
 of the Internet, understood as people's significant reliance on the Internet as
 an essential tool for their everyday activities and the resulting legitimate
 expectation that Internet services are accessible and affordable, secure,
 reliable, and ongoing. Proposals which offer information and guidance on
 pharmaceutical products and counterfeit medicines that show how to distinguish
 doubtful from reliable medical information and warning about risky behavior
 regarding the purchase of medicines by the Internet. Mr. Chairman, the Council
 of Europe supports the proposed draft program, especially reference to using
 the Internet, which brings attention and focus to the users, to the
 people-centered approach to the Internet Governance Forum. We would have a
 stress the need to agree on workshops early, preferably before summer, to allow
 good time to synergize and prepare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI: 
 Nippon Keidanren. 
 
 
 >>NIPPON KEIDANREN:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  My name is
 Sogo Fujisaki.  I represent Fujitsu and would like to make a brief statement on
 behalf of Nippon Keidanren. One of the largest industrial organizations in
 Japan.  Nippon Keidanren basically supports the current proposed idea about the
 program, especially the idea to discuss how to reach the next billion under
 "expanding" the Internet as a main session. In order to deploy the Internet on
 a sustainable base, we need to focus the efficient resource management of the
 Internet.  For example, approximately 90% of e-mails are considered to be spam.
  There's an Internet service provider in Japan is forced to use nearly 25% of
 the mail servers to combat the spam.  Considering more than 5 billion people
 cannot have access to the Internet, this waste of resources are -- and energies
 are very regrettable. In order to actualize the sustainable Internet
 development, we also need to recognize the fact that the ICT or Internet sector
 currently contributes approximately 2% of greenhouse gas emission, and the
 number is still growing. On the other hand, the ICT and the Internet could
 enhance efficiency of other 98% sector and positively contribute to the total
 environment. Nippon Keidanren convened a joint seminar with the Global
 Information Infrastructure Commission, GIIC, on April 24 in Tokyo.  The theme
 of the seminar was the potential of ICT to actualize the sustainable social
 environment. At the seminar, Paul Twomey of ICANN emphasize the importance of
 actualizing the sustainable Internet Society.  Also, Japanese former foreign
 minister gave us a strong message that the ICT or the internet has tremendous
 potential to mitigate environmental burden on sustainable base through
 innovation. So we basically would like to pursue sustainability, including
 environmental-oriented issue, at the IGF main session in Hyderabad to reach the
 next billion. Nippon Keidanren would like to cooperate on this issue with
 WITSA, IISD, and GIIC or some others in Hyderabad at the workshop. We are all
 committed to the preparatory process for the successful IGF meeting in
 Hyderabad.  Thank you very much. 
 
 
 >>CO-CHAIR DESAI:  I have Canada, followed by
 Bill Graham from ISOC.  Canada? 
 
 
 >>CANADA:  Thank you, Chair.  We would like to
 join others in thanking the Secretariat for preparing the document guiding
 today's discussions.  We would also like to thank India for hosting this year's
 IGF. In our view, development and capacity-building should continue to be the
 cross-cutting theme for the IGF.  Information sharing and best practices should
 continue to be a focus.  We support work on the subject of internet governance
 and sustainable development.  This concept represents a new and interesting
 area of discussion, with strong links to the field of Internet Governance. 
 Internet Governance and sustainable development could be pursued under the
 cross-cutting theme of development and capacity-building. There are a large
 number of workshops proposed for Hyderabad.  For this reason, we would
 recommend holding workshops at the same time as the general sessions, with the
 aim of allowing additional and varied organizations to participate in the IGF.
 We would also like to note that the methods of reporting back and transcription
 used for the previous two IGF meetings have been successful.  We would
 recommend that this continue to be the approach for recording and making
 available information on the activities and work of the IGF in Hyderabad. This
 concludes our initial comments.  We might have additional remarks to make later
 today.  Thank you, Chair. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Bill Graham from ISOC, then Emily
 Taylor from Nominet. 
 
 
 >> BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Let me first
 add ISOC's voice to those who have previously congratulated you on your
 reappointment to your current role. We have very much appreciated your efforts
 and the efforts of the Secretariat and look forward to working with you to
 ensure the success of the IGF. We very strongly support making available space
 for a broad diversity in workshops during the meeting, and if that means
 overlapping, to some degree, with the main sessions, I think it's a small price
 to pay. We would concur that it's useful to encourage collaboration among
 people making similar proposals for workshops, but I think we also need to
 recognize that there are times when there are differences of views that may
 justify holding more than one workshop on an apparently similar topic or theme.
 With regard to the discussion of "universalization" or "expanding" the
 Internet, we very much prefer the term "expanding" the Internet and the focus
 on connecting the next billion. We see that as a theme that focuses on action,
 largely bottom-up action, taken by a range of stakeholders. For a similar
 reason, we support the concept of "using" the Internet rather than "managing"
 the Internet. I would urge participants to remember that the Internet has grown
 through an open collaborative bottom-up model of policy-making and governance. 
 This has promoted innovation and the expansion of the Internet to now over 1.3
 billion users.  We believe that there's great strength in continuing that
 theme. Without going into great detail, capacity-building remains a priority
 for ISOC in this and future IGFs. And a final comment.  I fear that there may
 be a tendency to lose track of the theme of openness in much of the discussion
 of the program here. Openness really does remain a fundamental concept for the
 Internet.  Certainly fundamental to its use and fundamental to its management. 
 Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Emily Taylor? 
 
 
 >> NOMINET:  Thank you.  And I would
 also like to add my voice to those who are congratulating you on your
 reappointment and to the Secretariat for its excellent work. I'm just
 responding to the draft agenda circulated and to several of the comments that
 have been made this morning. On the main session, the idea of highlighting
 activities that have gone on throughout the world in the past year I think is a
 very strong one that merits further development and it could also be combined
 with an idea that came through in the paper circulated by the Secretariat that
 people would be encouraged to make commitments about what they are going to be
 doing when they leave Hyderabad in the following 12 months. I quite like the
 focus, as others do, on "expanding" the Internet and "using" the Internet, and
 would agree with the comments just made by Bill Graham.  But if looking for
 alternative themes, perhaps we can look back at the themes that are coming
 through from the workshop proposals.  They might tell us about what others
 think are important to discuss.  And what comes through -- strong themes that
 come through are child protection and some of the other security issues. Like
 others who have spoken this morning, the importance of holding workshops in
 parallel with the main sessions is good to emphasize.  There are many people
 who will be going to the IGF with one theme in mind and they will want to
 follow that through.  They might not be interested in following others. On the
 subject of capacity-building, I would emphasize the importance of sharing best
 practice.  Through practical examples, we can contribute through the IGF to
 skills development and capacity-building. As an example of this, I'd highlight
 Nominet's best practice challenge, now in its second year, with six categories
 based around the IGF themes.  We have seen a very good response from those who
 would not otherwise get involved in Internet Governance discussions. We have
 also proposed a workshop or a parliamentarian's forum this year in Hyderabad,
 an idea which is getting a lot of support both from the U.K. parliamentarians
 and the E.U. and others, and we hope that this will take off and become a new
 focus in Hyderabad. Like others, we would support at least one reporting-back
 session.  I think it's very useful to reflect on what else is going on in a
 busy session. Unlike some of the other speakers this morning, I quite like the
 idea of the big fight, or the big debate, but perhaps where others are
 resisting is that the idea that a fight has a winner and a loser, rather than
 what I think was the idea is that this debate brings together themes that have
 previously been explored in parallel through the IGF but can -- a lot can be
 learned by exploring where they collide or where they diverge, and so its less
 about winners and losers and much more about reflection and capacity-building
 as a whole, I suppose. I support the idea of sustainable development and think
 that Canada came up with a very practical example of how that could be
 incorporated.  Thank you very much. 
 
 
 >>CO-CHAIR DESAI:  Let me try and see if we
 can -- we'll see whether we can bring some focus to the discussion for the
 purposes of the MAG. First, on the themes, it seems to me that there seems to
 be a general feeling that the broad structuring around
 "universalization"/"expanding," whatever we call it, and "managing"/"using,"
 whatever we call it, would work, but that we need to give some more precise
 thought to the topics that will be covered under each of these. I would -- I
 sense also, listening to people, a concern that one theme of openness perhaps
 doesn't -- it's not easy to see where, exactly, it fits in this, but it's
 sufficiently important not to be lost in the whole discussion, and I would
 certainly ask the MAG to give some thought to this concern about how to ensure
 that the theme of openness is not entirely lost. I would also here mention
 something which was not mentioned here is the growing discussions I've been
 seeing in some of the public debates on Internet on net neutrality and what's
 happening to that.  I've been noticing a lot of discussion and debate on this
 issue, and I would certainly suggest that maybe one of the things the MAG would
 have a look at is to make sure that some of these dimensions about openness, et
 cetera, are not lost in our restructuring of the themes that we mentioned. This
 also applies, to a certain extent, to the theme of stability/security, which
 was also referred to by several people. Another broad theme which came up was
 the whole issue of Internet and sustainable development.  I sense here a
 concern. On the one hand, people feel that this is sufficiently important to
 deserve discussion at some -- in some place, but is this the best place for it,
 is the question which I think people have. I would urge, therefore, that
 perhaps the MAG can have a closer look at what are the elements under Internet
 and sustainable development which can conveniently be discussed within the
 framework of Internet Governance.  What are the elements which really are about
 ICT for development and are probably best tackled in the context of the general
 follow-up to WSIS which is actually being discussed right now across the
 street. So maybe we'll have to give a little more thought to this in the MAG to
 see how we deconstruct this rather vague phrase, "I.T. and sustainable
 development," and see what are the bits that correctly belong within the
 governance framework and what are the bits which are probably better tackled
 where other issues like ICT for development for education, health, et cetera,
 are being talked about. I suspect that there are many elements which will not
 be touched on but which perhaps we ought to be looking at. I don't sense a
 consensus around titles.  I think Parminder has given a very, you know, sort of
 careful defense of the word "universalization" and "managing" but there are
 others who feel that this word does not convey enough, and again, I would leave
 it to the MAG to consider this. The -- I'm not going to try and comment on this
 at this particular stage because we will be meeting later in the afternoon. In
 terms of the way the meeting should be organized, I think the main difference
 between A and B, the two options, is in how many workshops can be accommodated.
  Basically, under B it will be far fewer than under A. And I think there again,
 I feel there are some people who feel that we ought to leave enough room for
 workshops, and it's important that we recognize that part of the value of
 meetings like this is the workshops, and in fact, for many people they really
 get the resources to come there because they are involved in a workshop. But at
 the same time, we don't want to have a situation as we've had previously where
 the workshops take away so much of the time and attention of the participants
 that the main sessions become rather thin, and I think this is the compromise
 which we have to try to reach, and again, the MAG would have to look at this
 question of the balance between the workshops and the main sessions. But this
 is essentially the difference between A and B.  And -- I think in terms of the
 finer points which have been made about titles, et cetera, I'm sure this is
 something which could be fairly readily fixed. Reporting back.  Now, that was a
 session where -- well, I happen to have chaired two sessions and I have some
 doubts as to whether the format that we had for the reporting-back sessions in
 the past two meetings served a useful purpose.  But I get the feeling that
 people are not entirely happy about dropping them altogether. So again, I would
 urge the MAG to address this issue, because I sense from many comments that
 people feel that some form of reporting back from the other sessions to the
 main session is needed, but I hope that people will accept that we may have to
 look at how this can be done and organized. But I do take this message that we
 can't just drop it altogether.  There has to be some type of feedback. Similar
 questions about best practice forums.  There was several suggestions which said
 that increasingly our main session should come down from a very broad
 discussion into specifics, and that increasingly the best practice dialogue
 should take place in the main session itself. The -- and one of the things that
 would need to be looked at is a differentiation between what we call best
 practice sessions and what is going to be discussed in the main sessions, as
 such. I think the important thing that we are to avoid is to avoid making the
 main sessions an excuse for a beauty show.  It is very easy for a lot of time
 to be taken up in presenting best practices and you may well found that out of
 the couple -- two hours that you have, so much time is taken up in presenting
 the details of the best practice that not much time is left for discussion. 
 We'll have to see how to see that we do have a focus on best practices in the
 main dialogue, but that we don't sort of reduce the main sessions to a -- if
 you like, a beauty show where everybody comes up and says, "Look, what the
 wonderful job that we are doing on this or that." It's a challenge, but my
 feeling is that I'm not sure that everybody's agreed that we've dropped the
 idea of best practice forums. On the open forums, my feeling, listening to all
 of you, is people feel that these definitely must not become beauty shows, that
 they must be a proper discussion of the organizations which are -- the
 organizations which are going to have those open forums must be told that they
 have to be proper open forums with the proper discussion, and of the pluses and
 minuses of performance or whatever, and not just a roadshow where each
 organization presents all the wonderful things it has done over the previous
 year. This is my feeling, listening to what people came up with. On the big
 fight business, we'll leave it to that.  I'm not sure that in our big meeting,
 we would have a format which would encourage this or facilitate this. We will
 certainly try and ensure that in the interactive part of the main sessions,
 there is a certain attempt to draw out divergent points of view, rather than,
 you know, just go by -- from A to B to C to D, without getting into the notion
 of a debate as such. And perhaps on issues where there are genuinely very
 different perceptions of -- for instance, the whole choice between security and
 openness, you know, where there are differences between law enforcement
 authorities and others on how things should be managed, you know, that will be
 something which can be done outside.  It doesn't have to be done within the
 framework of the IGF itself. There are any number of television stations, et
 cetera, in India which can take on this type of responsibility, and one could
 encourage them to do it, rather than try and do it ourselves, but let's let the
 MAG look at this notion, in an attempt to try and, if you like, liven up
 proceedings in the IGF. I think there are -- one jumbled message that I get
 from everybody is:  Please leave enough time for interaction.  Have the --
 don't make the panels so large that there is no time for interaction. One of
 the thoughts that I want to leave with from this meeting for the MAG is, please
 give some thought as to how one can do that with 1,000-plus people in the room.
 Do we encourage people to come up a little bit in advance to indicate that they
 would like to intervene and what they would like to intervene on so there can
 be greater structure?  Is there some way in which this could be done? I think
 there was an attempt at doing this in Athens where there was an attempt to
 collect, you know, requested interventions and various people from the Advisory
 Group, in fact, tried to group them together and pass those on to the
 moderators and the chair.  Let's give the -- let's suggest to the Advisory
 Group that they should give a little thought, they should take this message: 
 More action, and don't take up all the time in the panel and the discussions. 
 But also to see how one can make that interaction more constructive than the
 usual flow to X, flow to Y type of procedure, and how it would work in a
 meeting with 1,000 people. Remember, this room here has about a hundred people,
 and in a way it's a group of people who will be meeting each other and
 interaction is much easier.  And then to some extent we follow a sequence.  One
 -- A speaks, then B speaks, then C speaks, then D speaks, and I won't say that
 this is fully interactive, though people have something to comment on and they
 are commenting on that.  It is very helpful and constructive. So let's give
 some thought as to how do we do that in a much larger gathering than this, a
 gathering which is potentially 10 times as large as this. How would interaction
 work? And I would urge the MAG to address this issue because this is clearly a
 message that has come from a group of people here. There are several very --
 many suggestions on the specific topics.  The point that has been made about
 how do you handle the issue that we had started discussing in Rio of critical
 Internet resources?  What dimensions do you discuss?  Various suggestions have
 come.  Some from the Russian Federation, some from ETNO and many others, and I
 would urge the MAG to address this issue as to how that could be handled in the
 -- in Hyderabad. There are many other things that have been mentioned.  I'm not
 going to try and cover all of that.  But this is, in some ways, what I get from
 this first morning's discussion as messages which the MAG needs to address over
 the next two days. It's about 12:30 now.  We can continue or do you -- we have
 Adam?  Oh, there's a remote participate, Adam tells me.  Could you please? 
 
 
 >>
 Thank you.  Good morning, Nitin.  Congratulations, as everybody has said, it's
 wonderful to have you back chairing these processes and thank you. We are
 taking remote questions.  There are e-mail questions for questions to be sent
 in English and French, and so far there's one substantive question from a lady
 called Raquel Gato, who is in Brazil, and she wants to let us know that she and
 a small group of interested participants have started a group called "IGF
 Remote Project" and they want to foster a more complete set of services for
 remote attendants and participation in Hyderabad. They're looking forward to
 working with the Secretariat and civil society, particularly with the online
 coalition for dynamic participation or whatever the name actually is of that
 coalition.  Sorry. They are proposing to combine the Webcast of the IGF with a
 larger platform for interaction, and they will try to make this available
 before the meeting.  They're exploring different programs and applications to
 make this possible. They're looking to develop partnerships with regional
 organizations and communities that could then create local IGF hubs.  These
 hubs would be a local meeting where the Webcast from the IGF would be broadcast
 and shown and then people in that local hub meeting could then comment on it
 themselves, have a meeting about the Webcast, as it were, and then send
 contributions from that meeting in to Hyderabad.  And I think that summarizes
 pretty much what they're hoping to do. For anybody who is interested in working
 with them, they would welcome that and there is a contact e-mail address which
 I'll read out, which is info@igfremote.com, and so that's -- yeah, that's
 correct on the screen.  Thank you. Just one personal comment about your last
 remarks about taking of questions from the audience during the IGF meetings.
 The Advisory Group did try and organize the taking of questions going around. 
 There were people in the rooms who would collect questions on pieces of paper,
 and in Athens, there were many, many requests to speak from the floor. This
 wasn't the same in Rio.  Actually, the only time when there were more questions
 than time to take those questions in Rio were for the taking stock session,
 which began about 45 minutes late and we couldn't accommodate all questions,
 simply by a matter of time, and then the very dynamic session on emerging
 issues. For all of the other questions -- all the other sessions, there weren't
 really enough questions from the audience to cause that interaction to happen. 
 For some reason, the sort of dynamic interaction or demand to speak from the
 floor wasn't there.  Simply wasn't there. So I think we have to consider why
 that happened. For example, I seem to remember that the access session which,
 of course, is an extremely important issue, probably only had about 13 or 14
 requests from the floor to speak.  Those pieces of paper came in. So we are
 somehow losing the desire to interact from the audience and so we better think
 about_that -- why that is happening and make sure that it doesn't happen in
 Hyderabad.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Certainly.  I think this is something
 that the MAG should look at, and learn from.  Of course you are going into a
 country which is -- where we are known as argumentative Indians, so we'll have
 a fair number of fairly argumentative types there. 
 
 
 >> Would the chair please be
 kind enough to put his earpiece under the table? 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI: But certainly
 the MAG should look at this remote participation. Fine.  Can I just then turn
 to:  Do you -- would you like to say a word or two on logistics, Ravi, or have
 you more or less covered that, before we break for lunch?  From -- on the
 organization and logistical issues, booking of hotels, et cetera? 
 
 
 >>N. RAVI
 SHANKER:  Thank you, Chairman. As I did mention briefly during the course of
 the earlier intervention on the logistics part, we are working towards ensuring
 that the delegates have a smooth stay in Hyderabad. The nitty-gritties of it
 will be worked out in consultation with the IGF Secretariat in order to see, A,
 how exactly the process of registration, when it can commence.  Two, can the
 process of registration and the booking of hotels rooms by the delegates be
 delinked.  We wanted to keep the two linked at this point of time because we
 were trying to work out synchronization on the two activities, but we will have
 to sit further with the IGF Secretariat to see what works out to the best
 interests of the delegates. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   One more question I have. Visas,
 what are the arrangements that you're contemplating, the two big issues,
 getting there, visas, and staying there right.  You have covered the staying
 there part of it. What are you -- what are the steps which are being taken on
 expediting and ensuring visas for participants? 
 
 
 >>INDIA:   In this aspect, in
 accordance with the host country agreement, we would be facilitating the grant
 of visas.  The registration would be an important aspect, because we would like
 to give at least a good six weeks' time in order to ensure that a delegate can
 apply and get it processed and is definitely having a visa two weeks fully
 clear before the arrival at Hyderabad. The Ministry of External Affairs will be
 writing to the respective embassies and commissioners' offices across the world
 in order that delegates from that respective country participating will get the
 visa immediately. This will be coordinated by the government of India's
 Department of Information Technology, with the Ministry of External Affairs.  I
 do not see this as a problem at all. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   If there are questions on
 the -- because he is not going to be here in the afternoon.  So if there are
 questions. Yes, I have --  Floor there. 
 
 
 >>FRANCIS MUGUET:   Yes.  Francis
 Muguet speaking as a partner of the FP7 project, the Digital World Forum was
 going to propose a workshop on the -- Digital World Forum -- on low-cost
 access. The question is on the logistics, is there is ICT village.  And the
 question is whether this ICT village where there will be booths and the extent
 of these booths and where companies could in fact display low-cost equipment to
 access the Internet.  So this is the question about the logistics and how this
 ICT village will be accessed. The other question is, could it be possible to
 have a contact point with the Hyderabad Technology City, the Technology City,
 in fact, to have also the display of local companies of these technological
 cities?  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Who will -- this is about -- there is
 reference to the ICT village in this.  So the point that he is raising is, what
 is the facility?  What is the point of contact?  How does somebody who wants to
 use that, who do they get in touch with? 
 
 
 >>FRANCIS MUGUET:   Exactly. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR
 DESAI:   Who's going to pick that up? 
 
 
 >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you.  I think
 there are two separate questions, really.  One was related to what we proposed
 as IGF village which would be held within the conference center.  There, this
 is something we will have to look at in detail during the next planning
 mission, on how to set it up.  But, of course, it will also depend on the
 interest expressed, on how many people want a booth.  If there are a limited
 number, then we can offer more space to the various exhibitors.  So it's a
 question of should it be demand driven or supply driven?  Personal, I believe
 in a demand-driven process.  And I think we will strive to accommodate as many
 people as possible who want to have a booth to exhibit something. But then I
 think the second part of the question was more related to getting in touch with
 the Hyderabad I.T. community.  And I know from my visit there that the
 Hyderabad authorities are very keen, actually, on exhibiting their
 achievements.  So presumably, that will be the Indian delegation who can answer
 the second part. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Would you please respond to the second part.
 
 
 
 >>INDIA:   As the executive secretary did mention, we ourselves are trying to
 showcase Cyberabad, the city where the convention is being held.  The executive
 secretary, during the last visit expressed the viewpoint that it would all go
 well if the Cyberabad success through various (inaudible) could be showcased. 
 And the state government Andhra Pradesh, which has actually set up the
 Hyderabad city of Cyberabad, intends to showcase it in a very cogent and
 integrated manner. I suppose that the whole purpose of it will be to see how
 cities or countries could liberate I.T. as a plank of economic growth and what
 have been the strong points of its growth would be encapsulated during the
 course of the presentations. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Can I make a suggestion to both
 the sets of organizers.  One, that on the village, which will be part of the
 complex, I think the parameters should be set fairly soon.  Because my
 experience is, people need time.  To use these things, if we just announce in
 September, it doesn't leave people enough time.  So whatever arrangements are
 there will probably have to be done rather fast, because people need to be
 given enough time to do this, who do they contact, what are the facilities,
 what needs to be done.  This is as far as the first part is concerned. On the
 second part, I would urge you to have a look and see whether it is possible for
 outside -- people from outside India who intend to do something of this sort, a
 demonstration, if you like, who need a local partner, where can they get, who
 should they contact, you know, some point of contact there so that they know
 that if you go to "X," we will be directed to the right place for contacts and
 so on.  And I would urge that you examine this possibility of having some point
 of contact for anybody outside who wants to do something on the nature of a
 demonstration so that they have a point of contact.  It should not be very
 difficult.  I'm sure the government can DEPUTE somebody to act as a point of
 contact. People like you know that if you go to "X," you would be able to get
 the right contacts there for whatever he wishes to do there.  Any other
 questions? Okay.  Then we meet at 3:00.  We meet at 3:00 in this room to
 continue our discussion. Thank you. [ Gavel. ] [ Lunch Recess ] [ Gavel. ]
 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Good afternoon.  We had a very interesting and useful
 beginning to our conversation in the morning.  And I tried to see the sense of
 what came out of that conversation towards the end. I was just wondering
 whether there are further observations, remarks which people have, either
 commenting on what others have said or any further issues that they want to
 raise.  Yes, I know -- anybody else?  I have two or three people who said they
 want to come back with some more comments. 
 
 
 >>ASSN FOR PROGRESSIVE COMM:   We
 want to come back on the organization of the main sessions.  Earlier, we had
 earlier expressed a preference for alternative A.  Looking at alternative A, we
 see a reversal of the process that was followed in Rio last year in the sense
 that, first, there is the main session on day one on expanding the Internet,
 and then there are three workshops on the second day. Whereas in Rio, there was
 the -- let's call them the subworkshops, say, on access, took place before the
 main plenary session on access.  And we're not sure quite why the process is in
 reverse in the program this year for Hyderabad. So the one point we'd like to
 make is that we think it is more useful for the main session subworkshops to
 take place before the main session, plenary session. And then in looking at how
 this might be organized, last year, in Rio, it so happened that three or four
 workshops were highlighted around, using access as an example, to feed into the
 main plenary session on access.  And the same principle applied to the other
 themes. But that seemed to be more like a matter of luck or a certain
 arbitrariness took place in the way that those subworkshops fit into the main
 plenary session. And we'd like to propose that this year, that there should
 perhaps be main session task groups -- one for expanding the Internet and one
 for using the Internet -- which would try and bridge a link between the
 subworkshops on each main session or main theme, and the plenary main session.
 And that this is something the MAG could certainly convene, with the assistance
 of those stakeholders that have an interest in running subworkshops or thematic
 subworkshops on either the expanding the Internet or using the Internet theme.
 I know language is a problematic thing, and I think it's more the concept that
 we're looking at, main session, task groups appears to be a neutral term.  But
 it may be better to have another term or description for this function. But,
 essentially, what we're looking at is, how can one functionally link the
 subworkshops to the main plenary sessions. Thank you very much. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI: 
  Could you just explain this a little bit.  I wasn't entirely clear as to
 whether the task group would be -- would meet as a group.  Would it be in
 between the workshops and the session?  Timing, could you just elaborate it
 slightly. 
 
 
 >>ASSN FOR PROGRESSIVE COMM:   Well, no.  The task group would
 commence work from this period and would have to be convened in some way,
 perhaps by a MAG member.  And it would then work on putting together the three
 subworkshops, or there could be more than three, that would feed into the main
 session on, say, expanding the Internet.  So they would work on the program
 related to that main session from as soon as a decision can be made about that,
 up to the point of the workshop.  And then they would be on hand to assist with
 the process of linking the subthematic workshops on expanding the Internet with
 the main plenary session. It's just to find some less-arbitrary and
 less-accidental way for these linkages to be made. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Parminder. 
 After that, I've got (saying name) and Danielle Dardailler. 
 
 
 >>IT FOR CHANGE:  
 We -- a group of members of the civil society met during the lunch, and we
 discussed about the manner in which the consultation is being held.  With the
 permission of the Chair, I would make a short proposal which came out of that
 group. This is regarding the way the open consultations interface with the
 MAG's closed meetings.  And there was a discussion about the possibility that
 it could be arranged in a manner in which there could be open consultation and
 a closed-day meeting and then again shorter consultations, because it was felt
 that as in today's discussions, there is a general kind of a discussion, and,
 for example, in the morning, I mean, there were no points being made after
 12:15.  And it seems there's a limit to what kind of comments can come on just
 general issues.  And if it was possible to, you know, have some open
 consultation and then the MAG goes in for a day, discusses in a closed meeting,
 and then half a day of a consultation again in which issues are presented to
 the open consultation, that could be a more effective way of taking the group's
 work forward.  There could be alternative ways of doing it, using half days or
 a full day and a half day.  But it was strongly felt that the -- and it was
 also felt that the numbers are not very high.  And it is quite manageable to
 have this kind of a rotating, open consultation during these three days.  And
 if the secretariat can respond to it.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   It will be,
 of course, a little difficult to do it this time because of physical
 facilities.  But it's certainly a thought which we will consider for the main
 consultation which will take place in September.  There was a time once when we
 did it differently.  We had a closed meeting, then an open consultation,
 followed by a closed meeting. So, in a sense, what came to the open
 consultation was a first round of discussions in the Advisory Group.  It was
 actually the working group at that time, the working group, which then went to
 the open consultation.  The open consultation commented on what had come out of
 the working group on the first day.  And then the working group went back to
 its work after that. So we have tried alternative timings.  But we can
 certainly put this before the group and look at -- there's nothing hard and
 fast about this.  But I wonder whether, Markus, would you like to say anything?
 
 
 
 >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Yes.  No, I mean, that can be looked at.  The question is
 to reserve the rooms well in advance and also the interpretation.  And then
 it's also a question of having the real-time transcription.  And it does not
 make the exercise cheaper.  But, in theory, we can look into that and we can
 discuss that for the September meeting, whether it can be rearranged.  We
 already reserved the dates.  But we would have to rearrange it and book it with
 the conference services of UNOG whether we can do it in a different sequence. 
 We can do that. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Okay. Anything more?  (saying name) of merit.
 
 
 
 >>:Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I'm RISHAB GHOSH from the United Nations -- merit.
 I'd like to REIT a statement from the dynamic coalition on access and free
 expression.  It's a multistakeholder group of NGOs, business, and government
 and academia.  And I welcome the opportunity to participate at the IGF open
 consultations at the 2008 IGF in Hyderabad this December.  The access to
 knowledge or A2K@IGF coalition was formed at the inaugural meeting of the IGF
 in Athens in 2006 in GREECE in recognition of the growing impact that
 unbalanced intellectual property rules have to access to knowledge and free
 information in the information age.  In particular, the coalition is concerned
 with the negative impact that excessive I.P. rights can have on the development
 of the Internet as a global communications platform.  The coalition met again
 in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007 to continue the discussion on how to remove
 legal impediments to access to knowledge and thus facilitate the free flow of
 information on the Internet. The United Nations special agency the World
 Intellectual Property Organization administers a number of intellectual
 property treaties that can have a harmful effect on developing countries when
 implemented poorly.  For example, the 1996 WIPO Internet treaties have been
 used to impose excessive antidevelopment policies on nations by requiring legal
 prohibitions against the bypass of technological restrictions that control the
 use of digital content and prevent the free flow of information, so-called
 digital rights management. As a U.N. agency, WIPO is required to balance the
 rights of intellectual property rights holders with the rights of users, taking
 into account issues of development in treaty formulation. The global access to
 knowledge, A2K, movement and this dynamic coalition have been created to
 promote a balance that favors the global public interest.  One key A2K strategy
 in relation to WIPO has been to participate in the WIPO development agenda
 discussions and to promote an access-to-knowledge treaty at WIPO.  Closely tied
 to access to knowledge is the need for access to technology, interoperability,
 and open standards.  The lack of ICT infrastructure and affordable bandwidth
 has excluded most developing countries from access to the Internet and they
 have therefore not benefited as fully from the Internet as they could. The work
 of this and other IGF dynamic coalitions hope to address the problem of this
 growing digital divide. The IGF theme "openness" implies not only the removal
 of obstacles to the free flow of information, but also encompasses promoting
 and creating an environment of openness and inclusiveness. Companies like
 Google have responded to the idea of promoting cultural diversity by providing
 search engines in several languages.  Business models and development models
 like free and open source software, developers have gone a long way in
 promoting free software applications and search engines in minority languages,
 thereby including and facilitating many more Internet users, growing small
 businesses and promoting the free flow of information across different
 cultures. The many alternative licenses available to software programmers
 writing free and open source software programs has facilitated these efforts to
 share knowledge and information freely while incentivizing creativity.  But
 these alternative models can only survive if international legal norms and
 technical protocols support efforts to make knowledge more freely accessible.
 IPR protection has always been given to creators and inventors in exchange for
 some benefit to the public.  These are usually included in I.P. law as
 exceptions and limitations that can provide a benefit to the public.  For
 example, when copyright owners permit the copying of their materials for
 private and educational use, they contribute to the general pool of knowledge
 available on the Internet.  The practice of remixing, reusing, editing, and
 combining of audio, video, and text to comment on culture and create
 transformative works depends upon a system of robust exceptions and limitations
 to exclusive rights. This dynamic coalition supports innovation and the
 creation of wealth through IPR incentivization.  But we also seek to support
 alternative models for creating knowledge goods, including free and open source
 software, open scholarly and scientific journals, online access to scholarly
 research, publicly funded research, and essential documents such as legal
 information. The A2K@IGF coalition welcomes a discussion in Hyderabad that
 explores best practices for promoting sharing of knowledge and access to
 information and that explores a variety of business models designed to
 encourage creativity and innovation.  We welcome participation from all
 stakeholders in this ongoing discussion to build an open and inclusive Internet
 to promote human development and individual empowerment.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR
 DESAI:   I hope you are planning to do something in Hyderabad, because this is
 an issue which would resonate well there, and so certainly this is on the
 agenda, and you can talk about -- discuss it there. I have Daniel Dardailler
 from W3C. Daniel. 
 
 
 >>W3C:  Here. Hello.  So I just want to make a short report
 on the dynamic coalition on open standards, which is in the -- sort of in the
 line of the access to knowledge specifically for open technical specification
 on the Internet and the Web. I invite more people to join and discuss the issue
 of openness and definition of open standards and thinking about what it means
 for government procurement, for all the users of open standards, from the
 programmers to the policymakers, to think about the -- sort of the openness
 aspect of technical specifications in itself. But more than that, I'd like to
 make a quick comment on the dynamic coalition process itself.  We've done some
 work on defining a process by which we can work in the coalition.  And what I
 think is missing and should be reinforced at the level of the IGF is some
 horizontal activity that would foster more process development, sort of unified
 development of process across the dynamic coalitions so that we can talk about
 commitment to work in the coalition, deliverable, and things that would sort of
 give each meeting an update across the coalition on the progress of each
 coalition. I understand there is a need for more staffing from the IGF and the
 U.N. to do this kind of staff contact work for each coalition.  And I was
 wondering if you had any progress or any hope or any news of more staff time
 spent on the coalition from the U.N. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   More staff from the U.N? 
 That's tough.  Because, in fact, we don't get a penny from the U.N. except some
 services occasionally.  And even the service we get sometimes have to be paid
 for by the money that is raised from extra-budgetary resources. So to expect --
 we have trouble paying for the staff we have, let alone additional staff.  So I
 think that's going to be a tough call.  But your broader thought about
 horizontal coordination between the dynamic coalitions, setting certain, if you
 like, not a manual or a guideline, but just some sort of statement about how to
 go about this so that it's effective, maybe the time has come.  In a way, it
 was an experiment.  We've done it for two years.  Maybe this is the time when
 we have to start thinking about it and trying to be a little more precise. As
 to what exactly do we mean by this, how we do the work, what are the ones which
 -- which are the ones which are working well, what do we expect out of these, I
 suspect that you're right.  And maybe it's something which we will have to talk
 about a little in -- over this meeting and next meeting. Yes. 
 
 
 >>SECRETARY
 KUMMER:   I have nothing to add on staff, but I would like to recall that we,
 last September, had the first discussion on this.  We sought guidance because
 we had some people who applied to be a dynamic coalition, and we thought, what
 are the criteria?  But then almost a year ago, the feeling was exactly as you
 said, we are in an experimental phase, and let's be very open and tolerant and
 liberal.  But, again, I think we need to revisit this issue to get a clearer
 idea of what the general feeling is to gain more coherence in the approach to
 dynamic coalitions. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   I have ITAA WITSA and then ICC-BASIS.
 
 
 
 >>ITAA/WITSA:  Thank you, Chair. I had said this morning that we would like to
 come back on a couple of points.  And I will just briefly reference two of the
 points we would like to make. In looking at the very robust and exciting list
 of contributions on proposed workshops, we also took note that
 intergovernmental organizations and other international organizations will also
 be submitting proposals defining what their open forum will be. And to ITAA,
 looking at the opportunities for participation and interaction, we'd just like
 to reinforce the importance of there being a robust number of workshops that
 are drawn from a broad group of stakeholders, not to detract from the
 importance of there being open forums organized by international organizations,
 but it's our view that there really is a dynamism and a diversity when parties
 who often don't even know each other are committing to work together to
 organize a workshop. And certainly there are opportunities within those
 workshops for participation by international organization as well.  So we
 wouldn't like to see too much dominance by the open forums in competition with
 the number of workshops.  It's just a point we'd like to make. We also would
 like to make a point about the dynamic, to reinforce a word that I used
 earlier, bottom-up approach to organizing workshops, which we think really must
 be maintained. And so while we're looking to support the idea that there's a
 framework or guidelines about certain criteria that need to be met, we're not
 in support of a top-down management of -- we assume that the applications or
 the descriptions of the workshops will provide the needed information to the
 MAG to be able to select workshops, and even to encourage merging. But we are
 cautious about seeing too much structural guidance being put into the process,
 because it seems to us it's early still for us to all learn about what the best
 structure may be in promoting the broadest multistakeholder and widely
 geographic exchange of views. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   ICC-BASIS. 
 
 
 >>ICC-BASIS:   Thank
 you, Chair.  We'd like to return to the earlier discussion about dynamic
 coalitions, and we agree with you, Chair, and with Mr. Kummer, and with some of
 the previous interventions on the need to clarify what dynamic coalitions are
 at this point in time, given that we have now completed two IGFs and are well
 on our way to preparing the third. We'd like to give some of our perspectives
 on the dynamic coalitions. Dynamic coalitions should be opportunities for
 stakeholders from a range of perspectives to come together and to discuss and
 work on issues between IGF events.  Meetings can be organized during an IGF
 event and reports on the status of the work can be presented at such meetings
 or in the reporting-back sessions. We believe that accepting one particular
 viewpoint should not be a criterion for belonging to a dynamic coalition, nor
 should it be the goal of a dynamic coalition to advance one particular
 viewpoint and use the IGF as a forum for such advocacy. Dynamic coalition
 meetings will be more productive if they adopt an interactive format and draw
 upon the range of stakeholders present at the IGF and become more inclusive of
 different viewpoints and if they are run as meetings rather than as extra
 workshops.  This would help define the dynamic coalition focus in the year to
 come and consider the related issues that are important to new participants who
 may not be active in the coalition. Dynamic coalitions should propose workshops
 if they wish to use that format, and it should then not be called a meeting.
 We'd also like to encourage dynamic coalitions to inform the broader Internet
 Society about the progress of their works between the meetings rather than
 focusing on activities at each IGF event. And, finally, a point on IGF branding
 generally. IGF branding should not be used in the name, logo, or materials of
 dynamic coalitions or other events.  To allow IGF branding gives the appearance
 that the coalition or event has the imprimatur of the IGF. The IGF secretariat
 should develop a disclaimer for use on the dynamic coalition workshop and other
 reports and Web sites and that states that the materials are not endorsed by
 the U.N. or the IGF. Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Okay.  I think we clearly have
 to do a little bit more of some thinking on the issue of dynamic coalitions. 
 We've had a suggestion on the structuring of the relationship between the
 Advisory Group and  which I think is well worth looking at. And your point
 about open forums is well taken.  I don't think the intention is ever that they
 should dominate.  I think we've had a fairly interesting and valuable
 discussion. I actually found that it's fairly precise and sensed that we are
 further ahead after these three or four hours of discussion than we were at the
 beginning.  And I certainly feel a little more confident about the discussions
 tomorrow and the day after, because I think that the range of possibilities
 that we are to look at has been narrowed. So we will certainly take care of
 that. In any case, the final decisions will be taken in September.  But we
 can't wait until September to fix the structure, because I think the
 participants need to know, and the organizers need to know what the basic --
 the very minor variations beyond what we decide now.  So my hope is that over
 the next two days, the Advisory Group can come to some definite conclusions on
 the structuring of the meeting so that we can announce it and people can start
 working around that. In terms of the interactions, one of the thing we have
 come across is the need for interactions.  I am counting a lot on the IGF
 village which should be there.  There is more space available where we are
 going to be.  And I think this time, we also have more time for organization,
 because we are about six months away from the meeting, and the government is
 fairly well organized in terms of they are focused on this.  Most things have
 been set in place. So I do hope that we will have a better space and a better
 possible -- available for interaction and a greater possibility of interaction.
 I think there will also be space there for a lot of organizations which will
 not have participated to have an open forum event, but may still have a stall
 in the village where they can talk about what they are doing and so on. So in
 that sense, I hope that the forward step that we take in Hyderabad is to see
 how we move the IGF closer to practical action.  It's still not fulfilling its
 mandate 100% or anything, but, still, it will be getting closer to practical
 action in terms of partnerships, dynamic coalitions, and so on. So this is the
 sense that I get from this meeting. I'm not sure we need to continue.  In any
 case, to sit in a room without windows on a brilliant day like this is a crime.
  But we could certainly spend a little more time.  Yes.  You wanted -- 
 
 
 >>
 CENTR:  I'm speaking on the behalf of CENTR. CENTR is the European regional
 ccTLD organization.  We are -- gather a group of 50 members which I think
 altogether account for roughly 70% of country code domain registrations.  CENTR
 is strongly supporting the -- IGF's multistakeholder approach, and it recalls
 the importance of involving all the relevant stakeholders on an equal footing.
 At this moment, I also -- and we also -- want to express our gratitude and
 support to that Advisory Group and the Secretariat for their work in preparing
 the meeting. CENTR believes that the IGF can play an important role in the
 development of Internet Governance through the sharing and exchanging of ideas
 and best practices.  Best practices sharing has proven to be very crucial for
 the development of all the European ccTLDs. CENTR itself serves as a channel
 for exchanging information, best practices, and, in itself, as a discussion
 forum for its members. And it is based on this experience that last year in
 cooperation with the other ccTLD organizations, CENTR presented a workshop of
 best practice forums, and an exhibit in the Village Square at the IGF meeting
 in Rio. On the one hand, we had a workshop on the functioning of the Domain
 Name System which was successful in just explaining how the DNS is functioning
 to a broad and diverse public. Secondly, there was also a Best Practice Forum
 which was entitled "One Size Doesn't Fit All," subtitle "What Can Be Learned
 from the Diversity of Existing ccTLD Management Examples." The forum showcased
 the diversity of successful ccTLD management models and gathered examples of
 best practice exchanges among ccTLD registries. Both -- I think we can proud of
 that. Both the workshop and the Best Practice Forum were well-attended and had
 lively question-and-answering sessions.  And it is, therefore, that this year
 CENTR again plans to organize a workshop, a forum, and an exhibition booth.
 This year, the proposed CENTR workshop will take the audience on a metaphorical
 trip around the world in eight ccTLDs -- in eight ccTLDs, each of them
 representing their country's national identity on the Web. These visits will
 show that the diversity of policy models in different countries are tailored to
 fit with the local needs and opportunities. There is no single best practice. 
 ccTLD registries around the world are in a constant process of looking around,
 learning, and identifying good examples to help them in developing the policy
 models that best fit in their situation and best serve their own community. By
 shifting the focus from management to policy models, the workshop we are
 planning to organize this year builds on the workshop in Rio.  Again, for its
 organization and the selection of speakers, CENTR is collaborating with the
 three original ccTLD organizations around the world, afTLD, APTLD and LACTLD
 and in this way, ensuring geographical balance.  By the end of this statement,
 I would like to come back on, Mr. Chairman, something you said just before
 lunch about the -- well, avoiding a -- organizing a fashion show of good
 examples, because looking to our experience within CENTR, I think it's
 dangerous -- or one should not underestimate the importance of just showing and
 just presenting good examples, because looking back, what we experienced within
 CENTR, it is very important what happens maybe after presentations.  Contacts
 are maybe hidden.  People seeing good examples.  But then they just know which
 person they have to contact, which person they have to send an e-mail, surfing
 their e-mail with presentations and then the real exchange of information, the
 real exchange of best practices just starts. Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  I have
 Adam, and then Bill Drake. 
 
 
 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Thank you.  Sorry.  There's some more
 online comments, or comments by e-mail.  The first is from a gentleman called
 Vladimir Radunovic from the DiploFoundation, and he makes quite a long series
 of comments.  The first is about the plenary sessions, and he suggests that
 some of the interventions might be taken in advance, so I think he's suggesting
 that we could put a call for questions to -- for the various sessions out
 before we actually get to Hyderabad, so that people could send in their
 comments before the meeting starts, and that would be a way of preparing the
 sessions. He also suggests that the debate format shouldn't be dismissed.  He
 thinks it can bring out important pros and cons on an issue, and can be highly
 dynamic and engaging. About workshops and the sessions, he thinks that we need
 to focus on interactive workshops, open forums, and best practices.  For
 example, approaches such as simulations, role-playing games and so on could be
 used and encouraged, and particularly look for the real experts on
 interactivity which he says are youth.  Involving youth in organizing these
 sessions, and in suggesting formats would be very beneficial. And he refers to
 the Global Knowledge 3, GK3 meeting, that was taking place in KL -- Kuala
 Lumpur -- earlier this year where there were a lot of interactive sessions and
 they were led by a lot of young people. About the village format, or the fair
 format, he thinks this is probably one of the most important segments of the
 whole WSIS -- of the whole IGF process.  It provides contacts and networking
 that are vital for -- as an ongoing process, so special importance should be
 given to this particular aspect. He also suggested there should be a space
 where groups can make announcements about what they're working on and about
 their achievements, so this would be a mini-stage where people could talk for
 10 to 15 minutes about the work that they're doing, simply to inform others.
 About the online space, then, this is advice that we try and take up more Web
 2.0 tools, including forums, wikis, hypertext comments in documents and so on. 
 It's a long contribution, so I'll ask him to post this to the IGF online forum
 space that all of us, I hope, can start to use a bit more. The second comment
 is from Rafik Dammak, who is also from the DiploFoundation.  He's from Tunisia.
  And he wanted to let us know that a group of DiploFoundation students have
 begun working on improving the Wikipedia article about the Internet Governance
 Forum, and that as any of us are able to edit Wikipedia articles, then we
 should feel that -- well, we should be -- be willing to do so, and let's make
 this article informative and useful. Finally, Olga Cavalli would like to inform
 us that she and Wolfgang Kleinwaechter are organizing various summer schools on
 Internet governance.  The European summer school will be held in Meissen in
 Germany in July, and the Web site for that is www.euro-ssig.eu and there will
 also be a summer school held in Buenos Aires in March of 2009.  The web page
 for that will be available soon.  And it will include international and
 regional specialists as members of the faculty.  Anybody who is interested in
 any of these activities can contact Wolfgang who is here, or Olga, whose e-mail
 address is olgacavalli@gmail.com. And that ends these e-mails we received as
 the remote contributions.  Thanks. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Okay.  Bill Drake. 
 
 
 >>BILL
 DRAKE:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I just wanted to build on what Willie Currie
 suggested before.  This was really drawing on both the conversation that's been
 ongoing among civil society people today and earlier, as well as the outcomes
 of the workshop that the Internet governance caucus had in Rio on fulfilling
 the mandate of the IGF, and this is the notion, again, of having some way for
 workshops to feed into the main sessions. It just seems to me the more I think
 about this, that this solves several problems, if we can find a formulation to
 do it. One is the fact that, you know, there have been so many expressions of
 concern about the sort of generic nature of some of the discussions in the main
 sessions, and the desire to make them more interactive and productive, and at
 the same time we've been discussing the fact that there are so many workshop
 proposals, it seems to me that you could get at both issues by doing something
 along the following lines: You've got these eight thematic topics under which
 you've clustered the workshop proposals on the Web page.  If the MAG were to
 look at those and try to identify those workshops which are most closely
 connected to Internet governance issues, as Internet governance has been
 discussed and debated in the course of the WSIS and the IGF, and perhaps
 designate six of them, or so, as being thematic workshops related to those
 eight topics, you could have then representatives designated from each of those
 workshops who would become participants in main sessions and who would bring
 in, on a bottom-up basis, some of the ideas, including any recommendations that
 might be advanced, from the workshops to the broader audience. I think that
 that would be a much more dynamic and interesting discussion that would provoke
 a lot more interaction with the audience, and would make people feel more
 vested in organizing good solid workshops that address Internet governance
 issues. Now, of course there would be other workshops that would address other
 kinds of issues, and that's fine, but this would be a way of building a strong
 hook between the two levels of events, and it would also, I think, obviate the
 need for the MAG to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to select
 speakers in a sort of top-down way.  You could, instead, have the workshops
 putting forward names, and the MAG wouldn't have to spend as much time beating
 itself up about exactly whether you get the right mix, et cetera, because it
 would be sort of generated from the participants. To me, that would be a useful
 way of doing some of these main sessions, perhaps on an experimental basis. 
 And you could also have the chair try to draw out some connecting themes among
 the conversations, or the interventions that have been made by the
 participants, and pose those to the audience, to get a more structured dialogue
 going, because it is a problem that, in the open Q&A sessions in the main
 session, people tend to sort of raise a live variety of different issues and
 the discussion doesn't cumulate.  If, for example, you had a moderator or a
 discussant who was -- having listened to the presentations -- to propose, say,
 five main points or tensions or balances between different positions to the
 audience as a starting point for the conversation, people could then respond to
 those, in turn, and then you open it up to a broader conversation afterwards.
 I'm just trying to think of ways in which you might be able to get a little bit
 more structure to the dialogue, a little bit more cumulation to -- and
 interaction, and to also avoid this kind of situation where we find ourselves
 sitting in a large room listening to people coming in with interesting, but,
 you know, sort of preprepared presentations that are not linked to the
 workshops, because it just seems to me that the workshops increasingly are
 where a lot of the most dynamic energy and engagement is, in the IGF.  Thank
 you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Emily Taylor? 
 
 
 >>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
 You spoke just now about how the IGF can fulfill its mandate fully, and one
 aspect that I'd just like to explore in brief is the -- the way that the Tunis
 Agenda encourages us to build on multistakeholder processes at the national
 level. Nominet's been working with multistakeholder participation in the IGF
 since the IGF began, or before it began.  We created some events and mailing
 lists and so on, and brought a cross-party group of parliamentarians to the Rio
 meeting.  Now, at the Rio meeting, Alun Michael made a commitment to formalize
 this process and to create a U.K. IGF, and also he made a commitment to work
 towards the reduction of online crime. On the 6th of March, with the support of
 Markus Kummer, we launched the U.K. IGF in Parliament with a group of 150
 people who attended, and multistakeholder panels both reflected on what they
 felt about the Rio meeting and looked forward to different projects under the
 U.K. IGF banner. Now, one of these is the Nominet Best Practice Challenge,
 which ran last year and is running again this year. Another was Alun Michael's
 initiative of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership, which is moving
 forward through a series of preparatory meetings. Another aspect was a
 competition aimed at primary schools called "Made It Happen," a partnership
 between eSkills and one of the cross-party parliamentary groups.  Now, the
 approach has that has been taken here is not to try and control every aspect of
 it, but to create an environment in which people can come together from
 different backgrounds and contribute in whatever way they feel is relevant, and
 I must say that the experience is more interesting and more varied for that, so
 events that are coming up, on the 9th of July, we'll have our best practice
 awards ceremony, and on the 11th of July, we'll hold the first of two messaging
 sessions, in preparation for Hyderabad. These have a very interactive format,
 and the approach is to try and produce outcomes from that meeting in the form
 of what people in the room feel is important, what they would like to see
 discussed at the international level, and what the U.K. can contribute. We
 hope, again, to bring a delegation of cross-party parliamentarians to Hyderabad
 and have proposed a number of workshops, including partnership in action,
 looking at U.K. best practice, and also exploring different national processes
 in partnership with France, Finland, and Brazil. And lastly the
 parliamentarians' forum that I spoke about earlier.  We hope again to exhibit
 in the IGF village and like my colleague from CENTR, I would reflect that that
 was a very valuable experience for us last year and something I'm very pleased
 to see holding more central position for this year.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI: 
 Wolfgang Kleinwaechter? 
 
 
 >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER:  I want to make a brief
 intervention about this point of national Internet Governance Forum. As you
 know, there's a discussion already, since a couple of months, or more than one
 year, that we have on the national level also Internet governance forum.  And
 what I have heard, that a number of countries have already started this.  We
 heard just about the U.K. but there are other countries. In Germany, we will
 have one national Internet Governance Forum on November the 11th.  It's also
 like a national preparatory meeting for the IGF.  And I would propose that in
 the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad there will be a space where,you
 know, these national events, you know, can be -- have a chance to report about
 their activities. So it can be done, you know -- that is a place where written
 reports are collected, like on a Web site, but it can also be a space where you
 can, you know, bring the national representatives together for a dialogue in
 the form of a special workshop which is not convened by one person, but by the
 IGF Schenectady as a place where these national fora organizers can exchange
 their experiences.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  Francis Muguet. 
 
 
 >>FRANCIS
 MUGUET:  Yes.  I would like to react informally as focal point of the Dynamic
 Coalition on Linguistic Diversity to the -- what has been said by the IGC. I
 think it will be a mistake not to recognize the dynamic coalition as part of
 the IGF process, and it is not a question of brawn or anything like that. To
 avoid any misconception, I suggest that the dynamic coalition could be called
 "multistakeholder dynamic coalition," so, in fact, this could not be said that
 it's under us or supported politically by the United Nations.  So this is one
 thing. The other thing, I believe that the dynamic coalition should concentrate
 and focus their attention on really the Internet and nothing else, because
 otherwise you will have redundancy and duplication of work with the WSIS action
 lines' works.  And I've heard, in fact, from one stakeholder about the -- about
 scientific information, since I'm the chairman of the WSIS civil society
 working group on scientific information.  I feel that scientific information is
 really a matter of the WSIS session lines and should not be dealt with dynamic
 coalition unless there is a very strong link with very precise Internet
 Governance issues. Now, just to add a point of, you know, for -- well, of a
 joke to this meeting, there's been a Best Practice Forum.  I think maybe it's
 just enough serious proposition, but maybe could be a good thing.  Maybe we can
 envisage to have Worst Practice Forum.  I think this could be a good idea, just
 to enliven a little bit the debate.  Thank you for your attention. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR
 DESAI:  We could do that.  Any takers? [Laughter] And I have one more. 
 Bertrand de la Chapelle from France. 
 
 
 >> FRANCE:   Thank you.  Just -- I didn't
 intend particularly to make a comment but I just wanted to piggyback on what
 Emily Taylor and Wolfgang have mentioned. Regarding national IGFs. As you can
 see in the list of workshop proposals, we have proposed conjunction with
 Nominet and in relationship with Finland, and hopefully Brazil, to precisely
 have a workshop on the national experiences and how they interact and interface
 with the international IGF.  There are several issues.  I'm sure that a lot of
 actors in different countries are interested or have explored doing similar
 things at the national level. France has initiated an IGF preparation process
 at the end of last year, and we're now structuring it progressively in
 relationship with the social and economic council in France.  And I thank
 Markus for having joined the last meeting that we organized a few weeks ago. So
 I would encourage all the actors who are engaged at the national level in
 experiences of interaction, multistakeholder interaction, to prepare for the
 IGF or to deal with Internet issues, to get in contact either with Nominet or
 with myself to take part in the proposal for the workshop. What Wolfgang was
 proposing to make it somehow a workshop of the IGF is probably no problem.  We
 would be very willing to explore this, but we can go on organizing this and all
 initiatives in this field are welcome to join.  Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:  
 Okay. A couple of things, just to -- towards the end which I just thought I'd
 mention. We seem to be slowly winding down.  But a couple of things. One, many
 people have referred to the whole question of national organization. But this
 is an area where there would be significant interest.  And I think anything
 which can be done to encourage this exchange of views and opinions is very
 valuable.  And there's another reason for this, that this is work in progress,
 the Internet.  It is not something which has reached a stable form as of yet. 
 And there are bound to be changes, evolution, as countries respond. For
 instance, as countries respond to convergence issues, which will require them
 to look also at Internet governance internally. So I think this is something
 the IGF should encourage. But in the spirit of just finding out how did you
 respond to this problem as it arose type of thing. I was very interested when
 the gentleman from CENTR spoke that he used the term "best practice," but said
 there's, "No such thing as one best practice.  There are many best -- it could
 be different best practice for everybody," which actually illustrates one of my
 concerns, I've always had this, but, unfortunately, I've lost that battle, so I
 won't sort of belabor the point.  But I've always felt that one should use the
 term "good practice," not "best practice," that you really can't say that this
 is the best, because it implies a certain cardinality about it. It's a good
 practice. And then one could understand that good practices may differ
 depending on context, situation, and so on.  But that's a battle I've lost long
 ago, so we'll continue to call it "best practice."  That's what everybody calls
 it, so let's stick with that. But I think it's a good idea to have this, and I
 hope that this can happen. I'm not sure this fits in very neatly into the main
 sessions of the IGF, but I think it certainly fits in very well into the
 workshops and perhaps down the line even into the open forums or something like
 this.  But we can see that. I would be very strongly supportive. The point
 which Mr. Muguet raised is, I think, an important one, because it's very easy
 to duplicate discussions.  It's very easy to duplicate discussions because
 there is another process, which is in fact meeting across the street now, what
 are called the WSIS Action Lines.  And we must be careful not to try and do
 things which are being done elsewhere, because we have enough things to do
 here. But open source is an important governance issue.  And it's very
 difficult for us to say we will not be talking about it, even if it is being
 discussed in other places. But I would say it's a point which is well taken,
 which is very good. Finally, I just want to mention one thing as a thought
 which some of you can take home with you. You know, one of the things, as a
 person who's involved in dozens of different areas of international relations,
 one of the things I miss when we talk of Internet governance is, I to not have
 a ready reference source. If I'm talking about trade, I know that there is one
 volume I can look at, or maybe, at most, two volumes, an annual review of trade
 policy, of statistics, data, and policy issues as they have evolved over the
 previous year.  If I want to find out what were the major issues of trade
 policy over the year 2007/2008, I can go to one place and get that information
 and say, yes, these are the issues, these were the disputes which cropped up,
 this is how it was resolved.  This is what happened in the WTO.  This is where
 we are on the Doha round negotiations. Similarly in finance.  To a certain
 extent even in investments and technology.  But I do not have a source like
 this for the Internet, which is becoming as important a source of global
 interaction as trade, finance, investment, et cetera. And partly this has been
 because there is no focal point in the international system for tracking all of
 this. To some extent, ITU does a certain amount of work.  And does mainly sort
 of, if you like, from the infrastructure end.  So certainly information on how
 many broadband consumers, et cetera, is available.  But let's say one wants to
 know what happened in the broad area of cyber crime over the previous year. 
 You have to do a lot of hunting, a lot of hunting in order to get that sort of
 information readily available. Are we better or worse off when it comes to spam
 management?  There are a whole string of issues which we talk about on which we
 tend to rely largely on, I would say, anecdotal information, or impressions,
 which each one of us we have gathered in the course of our work. So that's what
 you really want to leave with the knowledge network which we are going as
 colleagues from academia have set up and to others, is, could one use the
 occasion of the IGF just for something which is prepared, like the state of the
 Internet over the previous year, not state of the Internet from 1990, but just
 over the last year, what happened in terms of the major issues that we are
 talking about:  Access, openness, diversity, and so on. Is it possible?  And it
 could really be done as a voluntary exercise of academic institutions, with
 support from others, without any commitment by anybody, endorsement by anybody.
 But something like this would give a certain structure to the work that is
 being done, the analytical work which is being done in this issue. And I could
 certainly say, as a user, I feel the absence, the lack, of such a volume.  In
 almost any other area, if I am writing, talking, speaking, I have ready access
 to information.  But when I'm writing, talking, speaking on the Internet, I
 have to do a lot of Googling and hunting for information and compiling it, you
 see. So what I want to leave with you, we have time.  We are in May.  This is
 in December.  Whether it's a possibility, as an experiment, without any
 long-term commitment or anything.  If something -- and without any involvement
 of the U.N. or any endorsement by the U.N. or anything, if a group can just
 come together and say, "Okay, we'll make an effort at putting something like
 this together which could provide a template for future -- work in future." And
 I think that would be something which would be valuable, if it can be done. I
 want to leave this as a thought.  I'm not sure that we need to debate it,
 because we are not trying to decide this.  It's a thought and a suggestion
 which I leave to the many people here who are involved in academic work on the
 Internet. This is more or less where we are.  Are you --  For those who don't
 like the sun and would like to continue talking, raise their hands. No.  Then
 I'm sure all of us like the sun out there.  So let's all call it a day and
 enjoy this glorious weather. Sorry, Mr. Muguet. 
 
 
 >>FRANCIS MUGUET:   Yes.  This
 time, in my personal capacity. To reflect with what I've said to Bertrand de la
 Chapelle, the Delegate Speciale of the French government, a multistakeholder
 process, in fact, involves all stakeholders, which means civil society,
 Internet community, businesses, but also the government. And the approach by
 involving in France, for example, the Conseil Economique et Social, which is a
 special second kind of organism, which has also the same correspondence in
 Europe, the Conseil Economique et Social Europeen, the European Social and
 Economic Council, which is also with the name related to  -- as for the name to
 ECOSOC in a way, because it is economic and social things.  I believe it is an
 approach which must be explored, because if we have an unconverged approach in
 many countries, at least in Europe, we have, for example, a business-driven IGF
 in U.K., at least from my understanding -- and correct me if it is not the case
 -- a process, for example, in Germany.  I think there is a need to search for a
 convergence between all these national processes.  And this could be, in fact,
 the topic of an open session, an open workshop.  Wolfgang's proposed, in fact,
 a space.  The next IGF, I would like to discuss this question.  And I think it
 might be a good time to start in Hyderabad to think about these questions.
 Thank you. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   I think -- it is ripe for discussion. And apart
 from multi, how to reflect the multistakeholder character, I would recommend to
 those who are doing this, governments are also concerned about how to handle
 convergence issues in the governance context.  And I think this is also
 something that you may wish to factor into the design of the workshops. Yes.
 
 
 
 >>IT FOR CHANGE:   Yeah, thank you, Chairman. Yeah, I do like this, but I think
 if I go back without finishing the task, those in my organization wouldn't be
 too happy. Yeah, there was a small issue which I wanted clarified. The caucus,
 Internet Governance Caucus, had proposed in the February consultations four
 themes to be taken up for the Hyderabad IGF.  One of them is enhanced
 cooperation, what was meant by the Tunis agenda, and what is the status of it.
 I will briefly read out two lines, because they are relevant to what I am going
 to seek clarification on.  Tunis Agenda speaks for the need for enhanced
 cooperation for global Internet policy-making.  There are different views about
 what exactly is meant by this term and what processes will or can constitute
 enhanced cooperation.  IGF is the right forum to deliberate on the meaning and
 possibilities of this term through wide participation of all stakeholders in
 the multistakeholder spirit of WSIS.  It's quite possible that such an open
 discussion pushes the process of enhanced cooperation forward, which, at
 present, seems to be caught in a kind of limbo, or at least some degree of
 confusion. Though I can understand that themes need to be prioritized and not
 everything can be taken up on the agenda, and I wouldn't join issues if this is
 the reason this theme was not taken up. But the clarification that I seek is
 that, is there any kind of understanding or a limitation on discussing enhanced
 cooperation in the IGF? I remember in the -- in one of the open consultations
 last year, it was pointed out that this topic should not be discussed during
 open consultations, which I agree that it should not be.  But whether this can
 be discussed at the IGF, because, as I understand, Tunis Agenda does separate
 the space for policy-making, which is the nebulous work, but on enhanced
 cooperation, and the space for policy deliberation, which is the forum.  But
 this separation does not extend to the fact that one cannot be discussed in the
 other space, because that's precisely the point that policy-making issues would
 be discussed in the other space.  And if there is any kind of understanding or
 thinking that enhanced cooperation for any structural reason should not be
 discussed in IGF, I would seek a clarification on it.  This is also relevant,
 because our organization and some others are proposing a workshop on precisely
 this issue. Thank you, Chairman. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   First, I think there is
 really no bar on anything we can discuss in the IGF.  But there is wide
 confusion. There is a space where this issue is being discussed, which is the
 follow-up to WSIS, which is under CSTD and ECOSOC and so on.  And I understand.
  I am not, though, directly involved in this area.  I am reporting at sort of
 second- and thirdhand to you on what is happening.  But there is some movement
 there.  And that -- in the sense of decision-making. It seems to me that when
 we talk about critical Internet resources in IGF, to a certain extent, we are
 talking about the same subject matter which is being discussed under enhanced
 cooperation.  And certainly any workshop, any meeting, any main session which
 would deal with critical Internet resources to some extent will be making a
 contribution which will be valuable.  It's simply a matter of avoiding
 terminology which creates confusion between two processes.  Because there are
 two processes, one which we are happening and another which is being handled
 within the context of the CSTD.  But we are and critical Internet resources is
 on our table -- agenda, and was an item in Rio, and will remain an item on the
 IGF agenda as a deliberation item. So in that context, I don't see any
 difficulty in this being handled. Of course people will raise questions and so
 on.  But the simple fact is that there is nobody to respond.  There is nobody
 who can respond to that as to what is happening, et cetera. So in that sense,
 there is a weakness in the -- in discussing it in IGF.  Whereas, in the context
 of the CSTD and the ECOSOC process, which is there, it's a different story.  So
 my response is that, yes, critical Internet resources can and should be
 discussed in the IGF.  But it's probably preferable to avoid the term "enhanced
 cooperation" to avoid confusion between two different processes. Yes. 
 
 
 >>IT FOR
 CHANGE:   Sir, my understanding is that the separation is about policy-making
 and policy discussion.  When we discuss content policies or ccTLDs or any
 policies which are definitely remits of specific organizations or national
 jurisdictions, that does not mean we get into the policy-making part.  But as a
 multistakeholder forum, it has the right to discuss the area of that
 policy-making and contribute its comments on that.  And the separation should
 be seen in that context of one makes the policy, another discusses it, and not
 that one term should not be used in others, because then in that case, national
 jurisdictions would say that ccTLDs or any national content regulation should
 not be discussed in IGF, because there's a clear jurisdiction for making it,
 and only defense of our discussion would be that this is a multistakeholder
 forum for policy dialogue and it is right  to speak about it but probably not
 make that policy or contribute to that policy-making. And in that sense,
 there's a practical issue here that many people I know in civil society have a
 great deal of confusion what exactly is going on.  Some people do claim that
 there is enhanced cooperation going on from bottom-up organizations and they're
 quite content that that's exactly what enhanced cooperation is.  And others
 think that is going on in some corridors which they don't have access to.  And
 I think it's a basic issue of participation, a basic issue of multistakeholder
 participation and openness and transparency, which is spoken of much here, that
 this issue is discussed even.  If we do not have anyone to respond to it, you
 can contribute your views on the issue and just let it be read by anybody who
 may be in charge of it. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Certainly, I think whenever it's a
 question simply of terminology, critical Internet resources, if somebody wants
 to use a phrase, and enhanced cooperation, you're not going to put like
 television, bleep bleep every time somebody says enhanced cooperation.  Bleep
 bleep there.  It's not that sort of arrangement. And critical Internet
 resources, certainly people -- if people have a view on this, they will express
 it.  And this view has to be reflected.  So there's no bar.  And what I just
 wanted to say that there is a process which is going on separately which also
 involves stakeholders and so on which is not part of this.  But I see no reason
 why you can't talk about critical Internet resources, and in that context, if
 you wish to say something on what is happening or not happening, by all means,
 feel free to do so.  There's no problem in that. I have ITU. 
 
 
 >>ITU:   Thank
 you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to maybe provide an input on what you said in
 terms of the process that is taking on enhanced cooperation recently.  In fact,
 CSTD has just coordinated with the special agencies in order to understand what
 is the status for enhanced cooperation, just to let you know, so each special
 agency just responds in according to what has been done and what has to be done
 in terms of enhanced cooperation.  So there is this process that is going on
 actually.  The dialogue is required in order to mabe force the process towards
 enhanced cooperation. And then I just wanted to come back to your point in
 terms of a little bit of not clear understanding on what's going on on the
 Internet part, as you said, on the Internet Study 6, for example, on, let's
 say, some information that we can get on Internet. Also there, there are some
 -- kind of a process that is taking, let's say, on the WSIS discussion, on the
 WSIS thematic meetings, for example, during the next two weeks in terms of
 understanding and how to basically monitor a little bit the activities that
 have been undertaken and to understand what are the gaps, what are the bridges
 that have to be filled. And, specifically, for example, just for all of you,
 just to share some of the information, ITU has, let's say, a world
 telecommunication database here which contains information also on Internet
 penetration, on the digital divide.  So also there maybe it's just a lack of
 communication and coordination that is missing.  Because some of the, let's
 say, activities has been already undertaken by some of the organizations.  And
 maybe, again, IGF can be used as a platform to share these kind of activities
 and to try to get the people acquainted what is already out there, you know.
 That's all. 
 
 
 >>CHAIR DESAI:   Okay. Good.  So thank you very much.  It's been
 very valuable for us, the exchange of views and opinions on this.  And I'm sure
 this is going to help the Advisory Group over the next couple of days to work
 out a program for the Hyderabad meeting. So thank you very much, and let's go
 enjoy the weather. [ Applause ]