Lately, Internet governance seems to be the topic most covered as regards the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), especially now that many Internet governance meetings have been concluded and media advocates prepare for the Phase II of the WSIS. Some of these are the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) workshop held in Geneva last 26-27 February 2004; a Rome, Italy workshop by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) last 04 March 2004; and the upcoming two-day Global Forum on Internet Governance happening in New York, USA on 25-26 March 2004.

The latest information about this topic concerns the launch of the online forum on Internet governance at the wsis-online.net site. The wsis-online.net online community serves as a platform for all actors willing to implement the Action Plan adopted at the WSIS Phase I last December 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland. Featured in the site is a calendar of events that provides information about people, organisations and projects involved in building the information society. The online forum was launched on 08 March 2004.

Due to multiple Internet governance meetings of late, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement that large visibility must be given to these efforts, and all stakeholders should be able to contribute in this open participatory process, alluding to previous criticisms that Internet governance meetings have not been inclusive of civil society organisations. That is why the objective of this online forum is to host contributions from all willing stakeholders.

To participate in this online forum, participants should first register on the wsis-online website using a valid e-mail address. Individuals and organisations concerned with Internet governance should be willing to contribute to the debate in a constructive way. It is requested that contributions be kept short in order to facilitate interaction oriented towards producing a common vision. Languages to be used are English or French, but a summary in six languages will be regularly produced to facilitate an interactive debate. All contributions will be moderated to guarantee focus on different threads, and all archives of this forum will be accessible to all. The online community platform site is at http://www.wsis-online.net while the direct link to the Internet governance online forum is at http://www.wsis-online.net/igov-forum.

Source: "Online Forum on Internet Governance Launched" as posted last 08 March 2004 at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/pi1560.doc.htm