This is about a recent meeting of the leaders of several organizations that govern the global connectivity infrastructure, which the Internet has certainly become. They met in Montevideo, Uruguay and took stock of the situation. Their unanimous view was that the independence of the Internet from countries and corporations is of great importance. The major points that emerged as needing attention are described on this page:
Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation
The Internet and World Wide Web have brought major benefits in social and economic development worldwide. Both have been built and governed in the public interest through unique mechanisms for global multistakeholder Internet cooperation, which have been intrinsic to their success. The leaders discussed the clear need to continually strengthen and evolve these mechanisms, in truly substantial ways, to be able to address emerging issues faced by stakeholders in the Internet.
In this sense:
- They reinforced the importance of globally coherent Internet operations, and warned against Internet fragmentation at a national level. They expressed strong concern over the undermining of the trust and confidence of Internet users globally due to recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance.
- They identified the need for ongoing effort to address Internet Governance challenges, and agreed to catalyze community-wide efforts towards the evolution of global multistakeholder Internet cooperation.
- They called for accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.
- They also called for the transition to IPv6 to remain a top priority globally. In particular Internet content providers must serve content with both IPv4 and IPv6 services, in order to be fully reachable on the global Internet.
Techdirt also has an article on this. They see the declaration as a move away from American domination of the infrastructure and organization of the internet…