The inaugural Internet Governance Forum closed last Thursday in Athens, Greece after 4 days of panel discussions and workshops that attracted over 1,000 government officials, business representatives, and non-governmental organizations from around the world.

I was there, representing CDT and the Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI), our joint project with Internews. In two workshops and a plenary session, I highlighted GIPI as a proven model for working locally to reform national laws and policies in order to foster expanded Internet access in developing countries. Everything you need to know about GIPI can be found here.

Also present was GIPI executive director George Sadowsky, who, over the past 12 years, has educated and advised a generation of Internet technologists and policymakers in the developing world. As a special advisor to the Chair of the IGF, Sadowsky had a major role in planning the Forum.

The unstated question at the IGF was “What is Internet governance?” Based on our experience with GIPI, both George and I stressed repeatedly that 90% of Internet governance is local: telecommunications policy (especially enforcement of competition and interconnection), licensing requirements, limits on use of wireless technology, the privacy framework, and management of country-code Internet domains.

Overall, it seems as though the initial misperceptions that equated ICANN with Internet governance have been replaced with a more sophisticated view. Although some speakers continued to express vague complaints about Western dominance of the Internet, many speakers from developing talked about problems at home and what they are doing to create a framework more conducive to Internet growth.

In comments at the closing plenary, I urged participants to follow the adage “Think globally, act locally.” I recommended that each country present should convene at the national level an ongoing multi-stakeholder dialogue — local businesses, government officials, academics and users — to identify specific barriers and specific solutions that can be implemented through national strategies.

The session closed with the announcement that the next IGF will be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 12-15, 2007.

The IGF Website, with transcripts, is here.

As we approach election day, fear of voting irregularities due to faulty machines or partisan shenanigans grow. The Internet, however, makes it easier than ever for those concerned about proper voting to coordinate with one another and investigate incidents of concern. The people behindVoterStory.org have done exactly that. have done exactly that. They are collecting the nation’s stories about voting experiences and passing them on to those who can hopefully help in each case.

On October 16, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) asked the online public to provide input for how to improve the transparency and accountability of the organization’s operations. This is a very good thing. Unfortunately, the deadline ICANN set for members of the Internet community to submit comments was October 31. This is a major problem.

We applaud ICANN for attempting to address its historic deficiencies in providing adequate transparency and accountability. No issue has been more damaging to ICANN’s credibility in the Internet community. But the artificially constrained timeframe ICANN has laid out for addressing the problem has left many observers to wonder if ICANN understands the scope of the problem or the challenges the organization will face in addressing it.

ICANN’s first notice gave the Internet public two weeks to provide recommendations, and was premised on the assumption that ICANN’s board would enact new policies at the organization’s December meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil. ICANN later issued a second notice clarifying that it was seeking only “preliminary” responses by October 31, and announcing that the board would now take up the issue in March 2007.

That still seems like an awfully short timeframe to fix what appear to be a systemic problems with ICANN’s policies and institutional culture. In our preliminary comments to ICANN we offer some suggestions for fixing the most glaring instances of opaque and unaccountable practices, but also urge ICANN to step back and commit to devoting the time and resources needed to address these issues in a way that makes the organization truly stronger and more stable.

ICANN has taken a worthy and important step in throwing these issues open for review and improvement. Now it must make sure it follows through on what it started.