Since 1998 the politically and economically important management of Internet addresses has been operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is controlled by the USA’s Depart¬ment of Commerce, which is annoying especially to countries such as Russia, China or even Iran. After intensive negotiations, the governments of the 176 participating countries agreed on a compromise at the last UNO World Summit on the Information Society - WSIS (1).

According to this agreement, ICANN will administer the Internet’s core resources as hitherto. However, the exercise of these functions is to be newly embedded in a global regulatory framework that will define the political principles. In addition, the ICANN will work alongside the "Internet Governance Forum" (2) a platform of repres¬entatives of governments, industry and NGOs set up by UNO General Secretary Kofi Annan that will discuss and monitor ICANN’s activities. This means that for the first time an open forum including representatives of all the interested parties and under the leadership of the UNO will come into being to debate Internet-related topics and to discuss them openly, transparently and on an equal rights basis.

UNO control as a long-term objective

Although the Internet Governance Forum has no decision-making powers, it is also based precisely on the idea that there is no need for a central power in the Internet, but that instead decisions should be taken in a decentral¬ised way in various expert committees that have the necessary technical competence. Although this means that the Internet will not immediately be placed under the control of the UNO, the founding of the Internet Governance Forum on 30 October this year in Athens will set in motion a political process that could ultimately result in the UNO actually gaining control over the Internet.

Discussion among all participants on an equal rights basis

As a prelude to the foundation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a national IGF symposium (3) will take place at ETH Zurich on 7 July to persuade those interested in the future of the Internet to make a Swiss contribution to the foundation of the IGF and to create awareness and information among a wider public audience. As an entry point and basis, IGF co-ordinator Markus Kummer will give a presentation on the UNO organisation that is to be founded and on its aims. The intention is for the IGF to function on the multi-stakeholder principle so that all participants can join in the discussion on an equal rights footing. Accordingly, several stakeholders will present their viewpoint on the IGF to the Symposium, for example the Swiss Federal Office for Communications (BAKOM) representing the government, while comunica-ch will represent the views of the civil community and ISOC those of the Internet society.

The ETH Symposium on the Internet Governance Forum intends to develop positions and priority topics that Switzerland can contribute to the regulation of the Internet. large

It is expected that the priority topics of “Openness”, “Security”, “Diversity” and “Access” will be debated in Athens. Interested parties can submit contribution proposals on new priority topics and on those already planned. Two of the planned IGF priority topics will be taken up at the symposium at ETH.

The first is concerned with the question of how data protection, personal privacy and security can be guaranteed with new technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and who should regulate what. This raises the question of whether it is permissible for the state to leave the protection of personal privacy to the industry alone. A controversial debate is expected between Elgar Fleisch, Professor for Information Management at the University of St. Gallen and ETH, and Bruno Baeriswyl, Data Protection Officer for the Canton of Zurich.

The second debate is concerned with copyright and the access to knowledge in the Internet. An amendment to the copyright laws in Switzerland in the near future is intended to criminalise the bypassing of technical protection measures such as Digital Rights Management. This raises the question of whether such technical protection measures really are necessary to enable the continued offering of texts, images and videos via the Internet; the question of whether innovation occurs solely as a result of the protection of intellectual property or whether exactly the opposite is true remains in dispute. This point will be discussed between Stefan Meierhans from Microsoft, Felix Stalder from the HGKZ (Institute for Art and Design Zurich) and Professor Rolf H. Weber from the Centre for Information and Communication Law of the University of Zurich.