The Hindu Business Line : A vote for status quo

On the eve of the recent World Summit on Information Society, it was decided not to alter the way in which the Net is now governed. A round-up of action at the summit.

Recently in Tunis

DID you ever bother about who really controls the Internet? During the third week of this month, everybody in Tunis did.

The issue of who is controlling the Net, and who should, overwhelmed the recently concluded United Nations' event, the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) held in Tunis, capital of Tunisia.

Even before the Summit began, the hype about Internet governance had reached a crescendo. The previous edition of WSIS, held in Geneva in 2003, also had debated this issue but could not arrive at a consensus.

Many developing countries and the European Union demanded that the United Nations or a body such as the International Telecom Union (ITU) should have more say in matters related to overseeing the Internet.

The US-based Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was the eye of the storm.

Established in 1998, ICANN is a non-profit organisation that is responsible for overseeing domain name system, Internet protocol addresses and the root server system.

On the eve of the WSIS 2005, it was decided not to alter the way in which the Internet is now governed, entrusting ICANN to carry on with its work as usual.

However, the Summit acknowledged the need for more cooperation among Governments in running the Internet.

It was agreed that all Governments should play an equal role and have equal responsibility in the matter to ensure continuing stability, security and continuity. Another key decision was that countries should not be involved in decisions regarding another nation's country code top level domain (ccTLD).

The Summit also saw the creation of a new Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which will provide a platform for discussion of public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance.

However, the Forum will not have any involvement in the day-to-day running and technical functions of the Net, as well as have no overseeing function.

So how does all this help the Internet in future? One is not sure.

The Internet has been working fine so far, and as many experts admitted during the summit, the whole issue of Internet governance was blown out of proportion.

The net result was that many other crucial issues such as how to ensure sustained funding for Internet-based development projects got eclipsed at the Summit.

So the debate will continue on `how to bridge the digital divide' for many years to come.

Launch of $100 laptop

Another event that caught everybody's fancy at the Summit was the launch of the $100 laptop by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab.

The green and yellow prototype of this computer for school children, unveiled by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and MIT Media Lab's founding chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, was all over the media in the following days.

The laptop is planned to be distributed free to schoolchildren in poor countries through the respective Governments.

It has a handle to crank up power, Wi-Fi for wireless Internet access and is based on the Linux operating system.

The laptop, on the face of it, looks a great tool that will help millions of poor children have their brush with computers for the first time.

But it also raises some other questions.

The foremost among them is whether poor countries should spend $100 on a gadget, when they need to do a lot more in the areas of basic education.

Also, the laptop comes with its own issues such as how would you ensure continued support once millions of them are distributed.

The biggest achievement of the WSIS 2005 has been its size.

More than 18,000 people attended the Summit, making it the largest international event ever that took place in Tunisia, and possibly one of the biggest for the UN as well.

Unlike in the past, civil societies, non-government organisations and even corporates actively participated in the summit.

Usually, such events have a bloated presence of governments.

Hopefully, the thoughts generated at the Summit will linger on in the years to come, and at least some of them will get transformed into action.

vipin@thehindu.co.in

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