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Member SurveysManaging the NetApr 2004, by Michael R. Nelson, VP of Public Policy Last December, the United Nations convened the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a follow-on meeting in March, the UN held a Global Forum on Internet Governance in New York. At these meetings (and several others) many government representatives have called upon national governments to work together to guide the development of the Internet and the services provided over it. Some have proposed new organizations to control and regulate the Internet. Others, such as Vint Cerf, the co-founder of the Internet Society, have said "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and cautioned against creating new organizations to "govern the Net." There is no clear agreement on where international cooperation is really needed and whether governments need to take a larger role. In order to inform the debate and educate policy makers on how the Internet works and how different pieces of it (such as the Domain Name System) are managed, the Internet Society has been heavily involved in the WSIS process and recently published and distributed several white papers (for examples, see www.isoc.org/news/7.shtml and www.isoc.org/news/4.shtm) Global Internet policy will also be the focus of at least 8 sessions at the upcoming INET/IGC 2004 conference in Barcelona in mid-May www.inet2004.org. In order to gauge the opinions of Internet Society members and guide our Internet policy initiatives, we would welcome your response to the following survey. (This survey is similar to a survey circulated in February, which due to the rather cumbersome survey software used, got very few responses.) The survey ended on May 7, 2004. We appreciate your feedback! 1. Which factors do you think will have a major impact on how the Internet develops:
2. In which areas do you think governments and inter-governmental organizations (such as the United Nations) need to be more involved and pro-active:
3. In which areas do you believe there is a need for more international cooperation through nongovernmental organizations (such as the standards setting bodies, ICANN, NGOs, and trade associations) :
4. In which areas do you think the Internet Society should focus: No Involvement Unimportant Somewhat important Important Very important Most important
Summary of ResultsIn April 2004 58 members responded to Cyber Survey #10 on ‘Managing the Net'. Almost 83% of those who completed the survey believe that Internet Standards will be a critical issue (45%) or at least have a major impact (38%) for the future development of the Internet. Forty-two percent believe telecommunication regulations and 39% believe research programs will have a major impact. On the other hand, 53% believe that anti-spam legislation will have little impact and according to 47% aid programs for developing countries will have little impact for the future development of the Internet. The answers to the question in which areas governments or inter-governmental organisations should be more involved or be more proactive show that most people are happy with the level of government involvement except in areas like research programs where 48% believe governments should be more proactive. Thirty-three percent think there should be less government censorship and governments should also be less involved in telecommunications regulations. When asked in which areas more international cooperation is needed, the highest scoring areas were: Internet Standards (84%), research programs (76%), efforts to fight hacking and terrorism (73%) and aid programs for developing countries (67%). Finally, 48% believe it is most important that ISOC focuses on Internet Standards. For 39% it is very important that ISOC focuses on issues related to the allocation of domain names and IP addresses and 36% find it very important that ISOC concentrates on research programs. Thank you to all of you who took the time to complete the survey. |
