[LINK] Internet Governance Forum 2007

[Jeremy Malcolm]

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meets for the second time this year 
from 12 to 15 November in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where almost every 
conceivable Internet-related public policy issue will be discussed: 
freedom of expression, privacy, cybercrime, spam, and for the first time 
critical Internet resources (including the vexed question of whether the 
United States should maintain its dominant position of oversight of the 
management of Internet names and numbers).

This is a quick message to introduce the IGF to those who aren't 
familiar with it, and to explain how you can also participate in the Rio 
meeting online.

The IGF was formed under the auspices of the United Nations following 
the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to provide "a 
transparent, democratic, and multilateral process, with the 
participation of governments, private sector, civil society and 
international organisations, in their respective roles" for dialogue on 
Internet Governance policy.

For a quick overview, the most recent presentation that I have given on 
Internet governance including the IGF is available at 
http://www.ilaw.com.au/public/globalgovernance/.  For a much, much more 
in-depth read, check out the draft of my PhD thesis on the IGF, 
published as a wiki, at http://www.malcolm.id.au/thesis/. :-)

The IGF has of course had an official Web site since the beginning (at 
http://www.intgovforum.org), but it's been fairly lack-lustre.  However 
a new Web site for the IGF community has just been launched at 
http://igf-online.net/ by the Online Collaboration Dynamic Coalition 
(ODCD), a bottom-up multi-stakeholder working group of the IGF that I 
co-founded.

The new site already hosts a number of useful resources including a 
community blog, wiki, calendar, chat and news feeds, most of which were 
selected for their capacity to support multilingual usage.  It also 
features a specially-designed menu running along the top of most pages 
of the site, that links in external Web sites including the 
Secretariat's official Web site and that of the Rio hosts.

Although it's fairly empty so far, I would like to encourage you to 
begin using the new site now, and to return to it in November during the 
IGF meeting.  By registering (or logging in with your existing OpenID) 
you can begin posting on the community blog, adding events to the 
calendar, and entering information on the wiki.  Hosting of other 
IGF-related content can be accommodated on request.

Volunteers are needed to help with translating the site's content into 
other languages, designing a complementary set of themes, and spreading 
the word.  If you'd like to know more about how to participate in this 
year's IGF meeting, or would simply like more background on where the 
IGF is going and how it fits into the Internet governance regime, please 
don't hesitate to contact me.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
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