Saturday, December 29, 2007

When geeks get it wrong..

A common feature when you attend any meeting where geeks, quasi-geeks, wannabe-geeks or people that understand about computing, is that you see a lot of illuminated apples in the middle of the top of their laptops. The reasons are varied, but, leaving apart the coolness factor, they can be summarized into the belief that everything made by the company located in Cupertino, CA, is better than everything else (especially if made in Redmond, WA) and that those using Apple products make an statement against the evil empire, AKA Microsoft (there is even a Japanese animé depicting Bill Gates as an evil merchant trying to take over the world) .

The being better or not is a matter of fact (if we can agree in a definition of what is good) and there is some sort of agreement that Apple computers tend to be more stable and secure than PCs, although my experience has not been good with them. Just as an example, I don’t write many serious scholarly work due to time constrains but I do have some ideas, so I try to present them in conferences as much as I can, and the form of presentation is important (in one of my classes the way students look during the presentations is part of their mark and when they complain about that I remind them that if Einstein had written his theories in a piece of toilet paper we would still be believing that Newton was right). Accordingly, without the finesse and almost perfection of Larry Lessig, I try my presentations to be original and very dynamic, for which a proper remote control is imperative and I have several that work very well, except when in the conference an Apple is being used…of course, it is the world’s fault that doesn’t prepare things to work with Apple and nobody in its right mind would tamper with Apple’s perfection by installing a non-Apple driver, but the fact is that when I go to places were PCs are used, there nothing to be installed…the remote controls simply work (I have several brands and there are no drivers to be installed). But it could be an isolated example…like the issues that arose when the new Leopard OS was released earlier this year. According to the PC World Magazine

Within days of its release last October, Mac users reported dozens of problems with the new OS, some more serious than others.

Among the many: Wireless connections that slowly petered away, administrative logins that mysteriously disappeared, and a disturbing tendency to nuke data when moving it between two drives if the connection is interrupted.

Worse, a security bug that was fixed in OS 10.4 in March 2006 resurfaced in Leopard, according to Symantec. The Apple Mail vulnerability allows malicious attachments to execute code. German security researchers discovered that Leopard came with its firewall turned off, leaving users vulnerable to attack. Adding insult to injury, some upgraders even reported a Windows-like Blue Screen of Death when upgrading from previous Mac OSs.

But where some geeks (or anyone in the related family) got it really wrong is with the belief, taken to axiomatic level, that Microsoft is the evil empire (probably is) and Apple is not. What they miss is the fact that the reason for Apple not to have behaved in the way that we all accuse Microsoft of doing, rests only in Apple loosing the initial battle for the dominance of the personal computer market, mainly due to its own bad business strategies and not due to, in Google terms, doing no evil. If you want to know somebody true character give that person power, or in this case market share and that is what we have now (which relates to the claim that is technically superior: Apples are almost virus free because geeks don’t write viruses for them and the truly evil minds don’t write them either due to the small market impact that they would have, and by comparison with the early decision of keeping Apples, then were Mackintosh, “closed” we could have a perfectly safe, spam free, virus free Internet, but just few would be able to connect to it and freedom would be reduced to zero) .

Since hitting the right button with iPod and getting ahead of the competition in the portable music gadgets Apple has shown and used all the tactics that represent the antipodes of what a no-evil company is supposed to do. The creation of a proprietary non-interoperable format for the music sold through iTunes cannot be explained in any other way that a clear policy to abuse a dominant position, which should have been subject to close scrutiny by the competition authorities but, very strangely, received the unusual, diplomatically wrong support from the same that were supposed to control them when in this side of the Atlantic somebody thought that something was wrong (I hope that someday in the future we will get an explanation about that and lets hope that the person that made the strange defence does not suddenly decide to join the private sector working directly or indirectly for the company in question). Then to add insult to injury, the intelligence-insulting explanation linking the DRM (like not being able to listen to your music in more than five devices or copying it) with the proprietary non-interoperable format, and all to a request (imposition) by the music industry: if the music industry were calling the shots iPod would not accept “illegal” music from CDs without DRM, and the proprietary format only benefits Apple…Then, in a textbook example of using money and power to quench the competition we had the situation where Apple sued twice Creative Labs in the same week in two different jurisdictions (non related to the location of the companies but using the quite broad choice of venue decided in VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F.2d 1574, 16 USPQ2d 1614 (Fed. Cir. 1990), for patent infringement lawsuits), with the obvious aim to tell Creative Labs that the plaintiff had more money and that the merits of the claims were irrelevant to the lawsuits…

Then you have the release of iPhone…there is already too much written about the way that Apple treated the market and its costumers (check what happened to my friend Pablo) and not by coincidence was dubbed as number 5th in the list of the 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007, but I have had one in my hands and I don’t get it: if coolness is the deciding factor, yes, is a must have, but it doesn’t do much more things that many others phones in the market, and even the tactile screen is not unique or new (and the problems with it are always reported as temporary, when problems with other systems are presented as set in stone).

The success of the Apple Stores deserves another chapter, but lets briefly say that, although very good for the companies profits, it doesn’t seem too much of a nice thing to do to put out of business most, if not all, the independent retailers that kept the Apple Mackintosh flame burning when the market was not so favourable to the company (and the four times I went there they didn’t have the Apple part that the person I was with was looking for, once in St Louis, MO and three times in London). However, their reviews put them a places close to nirvana and make a point of saying unflattering things about the competition...

So, it seems that what clearly characterizes Apple is the opposite to what some want to believe, that is a “nice” company opposing the evil Microsoft. It is just another profit-seeking company and there is nothing bad with that, but this one gives the impression of having no problem to use any mean in order to maximize its profits and having some control issues (even the corporate information is not easily accessible from their website), while at the same time managing to convince the press and the geeks that they are the ones that represent the ideals of innovation, quality and freedom that we all would like to see…

I just hope that Google starts producing all this gadgets because until now is one of the few companies that tries to do less-evil while delivering as much profit as the market allows...

Thursday, December 27, 2007

In the name of the backbone, the router and the cyber-money…

CNN reports that the Catholic Church has started to collect online the normal mass giving, although the Church has clarified that this new way would not replace the old collection basket during the mass. It seems a sensible move to use new technologies to carry out old activities, but the use of Internet changes a couple of things that may not be very clear to the church goers that now interact with their religious bodies in Cyberspace. While it is expected that by changing the way the money is collected would not affect the charitable status of the church and should not change is nature for tax purposes, unless the church uses its own payment sites and some form of payment that does not involve fees, that fact is that an important part of the donation will go to pay different type of fees. The news piece refers to online collections fees of about 2.5-4%, but there are also fees associated with using your debit card, if that is the case (yes, for the surprised Europeans, in the US banks charge you to give you your money and if you use a different bank ATM you normally have to pay twice the same fee, and buying is “like” withdrawing money). And what happens if there is a mistake? Do you have a contract with the “vendor”? Quite obviously not (you do remember the issue of consideration in common law countries), so how do you claim? Through your credit card company…and they? Who do they claim? If they don’t have a clear person to make a claim to they just get it from the insurance, but again, if there is no identified person that is in some form responsible for a mistake (legally responsible) the insurance premiums may go up and then, you know who ends footing the bill…it still seem an interesting development, but the inclusion of purely commercial interests in an activity that represents the purest form of altruism within an spiritual setting as religion seems to add quite a complication…will this also give more ammunition to the EU commission?

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas in YouTube

Christmas day is normally used to eat in excess, recover from the excessive drinking of the night before and reflect about all the excesses we have ever committed since Christmas started a couple of millennia ago. One of those has to do with the dire predictions on YouTube after Google decided to buy it, and today I was reflecting about how wrong people seemed to be and how right the people of Google keep seeming to be.
I don't indulge in YouTube a lot (lack of time mainly), but some of the videos are quite useful in class and to entertain the masses in Christmas


It now also has Royal blessing...

Monday, December 24, 2007

CyberChristmas and consumer rights

Keeping with the trend of previous years, it seems that this year the online sales are growing far more than proportional than high street sales in UK, with the addition of having several shops starting their Christmas Sales online before the Boxing Day Sales in their brick and mortars shops. According to the BBC, the Interactive Media in Retail Group's CEO, James Roper, said that their projections suggested an increase of 66% in the amount spent on Christmas day online. On the other hand, in the other side of the Atlantic Internet sales rose at the slowest pace on record, probably due to the impact of the credit crunch, fuel prices and overall economic uncertainty...These two pieces of information can be used for many things, like showing the difference in consumer sentiment across the Atlantic, or proving that the argument that strong consumer and privacy rights hurt businesses and are not conducive towards a online business friendly environment are simply not correct. The difference in protection between UK and the US is huge if type, depth and coverage are combined and, if those proponents of self-regulation were right, the US should always be ahead. However, the fact is that the issue is quite complex and there are many factors that affect the creation of an online business friendly environment, and this Christmas data seems to show that either those other factors outweigh greatly the alleged negative impact of strict regulation or that the strict regulation is one of the factors positively affecting online sales (one of the reports does refer to increased consumer confidence in Internet as one of the causes). So the conclusion, again, is that if consumer protection in general and privacy in particular are a cause of unfriendliness to e-business but other factors are more important, they still should be strictly protected by regulation due to their minimum negative impact and the existence of an array of instruments establishing them as rights, and if they are, as more evidence suggest, a positive influence in the creation of an e-business friendly environment, the main market players should stop being hostage of the few industries that benefit from the lack of strict legislation on consumer rights and privacy protection and start joining consumer rights groups in the quest to get proper cross-sector legislation for the protection of such rights enacted in both sides of the Atlantic.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Shameless

A little of shameless self-promotion...I've been shortlisted for the UK Law Teacher of the Year award...thanks to the UKCLE...and lets hope that I am really teaching well to my students...in any case, it goes to all of those who understand that being a teacher implies actual teaching...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Intellectual Capitalism and ICT Law Administration: Developing the Knowledge Industry

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Submission Deadline: December 31, 2007

Intellectual Capitalism and ICT Law Administration: Developing the Knowledge Industry

A book edited by Dr. Fernando Barrio, London Metropolitan Business School, UK

Introduction

A confluence of technological developments, cultural shifts and economic changes have led to the rise of a sector collectively known as knowledge industries, which encompasses activities such as biotechnology, software development, ICT, education, e-learning, digital arts, entertainment and media. Many of these industries are closely linked in sharing resources, ideas and talent, developing flexible supply chains and accelerating business development. These industries also have in common the need for clear and established rules for ownership and transfer of the rights representing the real value on them, clarity on the rules applied to the use of personal data and access to information, and a vast array of issues that, without being completely novel, may give rise to the need of novel legal treatment of them. While the existence of those clear rules seems to be create a favorable environment for any industry, these rules are an imperative for the development of the knowledge industries.

The Overall Objective of the Book

In the area of law and technology there is a vacuum of edited books dealing with the socio-economic and cultural shift originated from the development and use of ICTs, and their impact on laws, regulation and harmonization processes, treated in their relation to the development of knowledge industries and their progress. While it is not possible to address every issue in every jurisdiction, the book aims to treat a vast array of matters from different jurisdictions and from different approaches to law and regulations to achieve the objective of showcasing the current state of legal developments related to technology and development at global scale, with emphasis on developing countries or the impact upon them of other countries regulations, as well as informing the international community of the latest trends on legal regulation to technology and knowledge industries.

The Target Audience

The book would serve the needs of professionals and researchers working in the field of IT law, knowledge industries development studies and technology-related public policy. International and local lawyers, corporate managers, policy makers, scholars, students and many others in need of having a current picture of the regulatory environment of IT issues and its impact in developing the knowledge industries will find the book appealing.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Regulation to ICT standards
  • Law and policy of ICT off-shoring projects
  • The protection of intellectual creations and knowledge transfer
  • Contract law rules and Internet commerce
  • Privacy and Data Protection: Risks and developments
  • Innovation policies and the regulatory framework of innovation
  • Development policies and ICT regulation
  • Cybercrime and Cyberlaw
  • Access to public information legislation
  • E-banking regulation

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December 31, 2007, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by February 28, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 30, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind peer review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global, www.igi-global.com, publisher of the IGI Publishing (formerly Idea Group Publishing), Information Science Publishing, IRM Press, CyberTech Publishing, Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference), and Medical Information Science Reference imprints.


Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Dr. Fernando Barrio

London Metropolitan Business School

London Metropolitan University

Stapleton House 108a

277-281 Holloway Road

London N7 8HN

UK

Tel.: +44-20-7133-3962

Email: f.barrio@londonmet.ac.uk


Thursday, November 22, 2007

Bloodspell night

In few days I will go back to the issues of ICANN, data-stupidity in UK (sorry, security) and other wirld animals decided by US courts these days, but today I will endulge on film viewing and listening to proper scholars, when in few hours we host the Bloodspell viewing followed by a panel discussion. I'll write a report later, but now...to enjoy...

Thursday, November 15, 2007

ICANN: hypersensitivity or something else?

Yesterday I participated in the workshop on Governance Frameworks for Critical Internet Resources, where I talked about the Legal Framework of CIR using as example some legalities involving ICANN. It is important to note that in the beginning of my talk I expressly said that ICANN would be used as example to show broader issues, but the talk was not about ICANN. I also said that due to a requirement of the organizers of the panel I would only make a diagnosis without making any proposal. After giving a brief and tentative definition of Critical Internet Resources and explaining that what were the resources that were critical for the functioning of Internet was a contentious issue, I went into saying that there was no much disagreement in the fact that the Domain Name System was a CIR. Then, I , explained that the DNS would take us to ICANN and, once again, I repeated that the issue was not about ICANN but that ICANN perfectly exemplified the legal situation of the governance of many CIR (I took the opportunity to repeat that I believed that ICANN was doing a good job doing what was supposed to do).

Once started with ICANN I first explained that regardless how ICANN saw itself, the organization was technically a regulator (I actually called it the “ultimate regulator of the DNS”), due to being in charge of price setting for the resource, the registrars accreditation, new public offerings and having power of enforcement, and that it was unfortunate that ICANN did not see itself as one, because by recognizing the reality of being a regulator the organization could tackle the current problems and discontent by using the appropriate legal architecture. Not doing so would mean that ICANN would still be subject to attacks and criticism for not having proper delegation of authority to regulate a international resource, for not having a express and clear mandate emanated by a competent organ, for not having internal processes established by the same act of delegation and delimitation of the mandate, for not having adequate judicial review of its actions, and for lack of transparent political oversight (which I also said is a double edged sword). Going into ICANN, that translated into having its original authority and mandate given by a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Commerce of the US, having its internal processes decided by bylaws governed by the law of California, establishing relations to other NICs through some form of contractual agreement, and having inherited some relations originated in the delegations that the original IANA made to some NICs (the relation between ICANN and the US DoC is not the same anymore, but that fact was irrelevant to the discussion because ICANN was an example to show the legal complexities of CIR’s governance issues and the focus was not in the current status of the organization). Those arrangements implied that in case of conflict, some issues could be decided in Federal Court, due to the existence of a memorandum with a public authority delegating some regulatory powers, others related to compliance with the bylaws would have to be resolved in a Californian court, and those related to the contracts with the NICs would depend on certain conflict of law issues. After reminding to the audience that the talk was about the uncertainties surrounding CIR due to the lack of a proper legal setting and not about ICANN (the organization was the excuse and example to show the other fact) I ended saying that, as agreed with the organizers, I would not advance any proposal (which, of course I had). During question time I repeated the need to keep ICANN and its principles, but I also said that we needed to be creative to find a legal architecture that would preserve that while giving to the organization the needed delegation and mandate that would silence the critics.

However, and quite surprisingly, it seems that my talk did not go well with some people of ICANN and also, as far as I was informed, it was not properly reported. I guess that there is some form of communication between the members of ICANN and there the report said, I imagine innocently, things that I did not said, like “[Fernando Barrio] [s]aid there is not way of regulating the regulator”, when I actually said that the regulator is not properly regulated (as regulator) and there is a need to do so (which implies that there is a way to regulate the regulator). In a couple of places the “report” refers to my references to Californian law, but omits to say that explicitly said that that would be the venue if a conflict arises about the use or interpretation of the bylaws (ICANN is a non-profit incorporated in California). For some reason the reporter made references to California even when referring to a potential conflict about the Memorandum of Understanding and contractual issues with the NICs (in this case I said that it depended on a part of domestic law called “conflict of laws” and that the result and venue was uncertain, and could be California [like it could be any jurisdiction of the planet]). I clearly understand that it is difficult to follow somebody’s talk and make notes, which is specially true with me due to the way I talk and sometimes jump from one topic to another, so the reported bears no blame at all about the confusion, and that is the main reason for me normally write very succinct general summaries about others’ presentations unless a have a transcript in front of me. The reactions that followed, some members seemed quite uneasy about what I said, are in one way understandable due to the hypersensitivity from the people of ICANN for being again used as target by everyone, but if the characterization of me being “misinformed” is not based on the inaccuracies of the report but just on disagreeing with what I said, I think that we might be in front of a bigger problem, which is not being able to accept others’ views and that would be worrying in the ICANN context (where, in theory, the input of all the stakeholders is sought). I hope that the later is not the case because I still believe that with proper creative thinking we should be able to find the legal infrastructure that would ensure that ICANN can keep doing its job and have proper authority and mandate from the relevant parties, a clear internal process decided by the same act of delegation, and limited political oversight, while , as Vint Cerf said in his Legacy Letter to the ICANN Community, “evolv[ing] and strengthen[ing] its implementation of multi-stakeholder policy development”, for which it needs to be praised.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

IGF Opening Ceremony 2.2

Next speaker, Mr. Adama Samassékou, executive secretary, African academy of languages.

ADAMA SAMASSEKOU: Excellencies, Mr. Chairperson, ministers, secretary of the ITU, honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Let me first of all to begin by saying to you what a great honor it is for me to address this great family of the Information Society, this family of shared knowledge and know-how that I am pleased to meet once again here in Rio. It is a pleasure also for me to thank the Brazilian government for the welcome they have extended to us and the executive secretary of the forum for the convening of this second session. My dear friends, I am delighted by the passion I have seen at this Internet Governance Forum, and no one can be unaware of the great importance of this forum. That is why I should like to share with you a few thoughts regarding the process we began more than five years ago. First of all, allow me to recall some of the achievements of the World Summit on the Information Society process. First of all, what I recall the spirit of the summit, which is typified by the multistakeholder approach which led to an innovative mechanism with the establishment and institutionalization of the civil society office and the representation of the private sector which has led to the development of a dynamic inclusive partnership bringing together all of the stakeholders, governments, civil society, the private sector, and intergovernmental organizations. Secondly, two major African initiatives, the digital solidarity fund in Geneva and MAAYA, the world network for linguistic diversity in Tunis. Thirdly, the development of a follow-up mechanism for the implementation of the guidelines that emerged from the Geneva phase into the global coordination of the ITU, UNESCO, and UNDP. And also I would hail the initiative of the ITU. Fourth, the creation of the Internet Governance Forum which was made formal in Tunis. But my dear friends, we are today, if I can put it that way, at a crossroads, a crossroads given the challenges facing the Internet Governance Forum. The IGF is the only formal arrangement that emerged from the WSIS, bringing together all of our great international family. Is it not necessary that in order to keep up this beautiful enthusiasm and to promote within the forum a mechanism for making recommendations for specific action addressing all of the issues of the mandate of the IGF? Of the 12 points of the mandate of the IGF, I'd like in particular to highlight the following: Practices, and in this regard, make full use of expertise of academic, scientific, and technical communities. Five, advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of Internet in the developing world. Seven, identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of relevant bodies and the general public, and, where appropriate, make recommendations. Eight, point eight, contribute to capacity-building for Internet governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local sources of knowledge and expertise. Point 11, help to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet of particular concern to everyday users. For that point of view, then, the discussion on the democratization of the Internet should also include, first, the need for each citizen of our planet to have access to this tool in their language. And also the urgent need to work together in order to tackle the serious abuses of Internet use. We can do this through a major program of training and awareness promotion, in particular, through libraries and other appropriate common spaces, making them at the core of the new society we are building, and, in particular, for up and coming generations. In this context, then, we must take the fortunate opportunity of next year being the international year for languages, to lay greater stress on the points I have just made at the third session of the IGF in India. As executive secretary of the African academy of languages and as president of the global network for linguistic diversity, I should like to assure you of our willingness to work with the bodies of the forum to that end. It is already a great pleasure for me to invite you to consult the UNESCO Web site, which is the lead organization for next year, the international year of languages, I would like to draw attention to the excellent statement by the director general, Mr. Matsuura, saying, languages are important. Lastly, in conclusion, I should like to make an appeal here to this august body to encourage us all to think -- in the Internet Governance Forum, to think about ways and means of building regional dynamism so that societies can take on board the new ICTs, taking into account the specifics of each region of world to ensure greater participation by all in the benefits of this global common good that is the Internet. May the almighty be with us in carrying out our undertaking to build humanness in the world, a new humanity which is the only way of dehumanizing states between people. Thank you.

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Mr. Samassékou. Next speaker, Mr. Luigi Vimercati, Under Secretary of Communication, Italy.

LUIGI VIMERCATI: Distinguished representatives of governments, of international organizations, and of the civil society, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the government of Brazil for hosting this important event and to the IGF secretariat for having made possible this second crucial meeting on Internet governance. The Athens conference last year opened the way for a global and multistakeholder discussion on the development of the most powerful instrument that humanity has ever had, able to generate and circulate knowledge and to shift power. From then on, Italy has clearly expressed the opinion that a set of principles is necessary to allow a democratic and inclusive development of the Internet, agreed and shared on a global scale. In this view, the Italian government, together with the United Nations, has organized last September in Rome a dialogue forum on Internet rights that saw the participation of more than 700 delegates from governments, civil society, the private sector, academia, coming from 70 different countries. The forum confirmed the necessity to define at an international and multistakeholder level common rules for Internet governance, which, in our opinion, should take on the form of an "Internet Bill of Rights." It is quite evident that the Internet is introducing nowadays radical changes in every dimension of human behavior, from economy to communication, to social and political relationships. Its hasty growth affects directly human rights and shows shortcomings of the measures adopted so far to protect them, but at the same time, it reveals an extraordinary potential as a new bottom-up form of expression, able to strengthen democracy in the knowledge-based society. Today we are witnessing the birth of a new generation of rights pertaining to global digital citizenship, which represents an extension, with its specific peculiarities, of fundamental human rights. Consequently, a bill of rights is needed, a jointly agreed definition of these rights, consistent rules to ensure freedom and access to Internet, together with forms of self-regulation, all of these to guarantee the rights of single individuals and social groups, particularly the most vulnerable ones. Absence of rules doesn't necessarily mean a freer Internet. We must not forget that freedom of expression and the free flow of information and ideas has to go alongside with the safety and the integrity of the Internet to make it achieve its full potential and to avoid the supremacy of the strong over the weak. We must ensure that everyone in the world can benefit from these opportunities offered by the Internet by removing all the barriers that hinder full access to the Net and trying to bridge the digital divide. For all of these reasons, we are particularly pleased to be here today. The Internet Governance Forum is the ideal place to gather shared views on the four areas of discussion -- access, diversity, openness, security -- all of them relating to the Internet Bill of Rights. In fact, we firmly believe that it is our responsibility as policymakers to reaffirm our commitment to make the Internet a means of social cohesion and inclusion and to build a people-centered, knowledge-based, and progress-oriented information society. Nevertheless, defining principles and common rules for the Internet, especially in consideration of its intrinsic characteristics, also entails the definition of a new working method. Internet is, by definition, a place of extended discussion, of initiatives involving a large number of people. Therefore, it becomes evident that an Internet Bill of Rights cannot be achieved through traditional procedures typical of international conventions, that is, through top-down cooperation between governments or through classical forms of multilateral diplomacy. The Internet Bill of Rights can and must be the starting point of a unique process involving a multiplicity of actors at different levels. The dynamic coalitions, set up with the IGF, are the best example of this new approach that we intend to adopt. My country participants at different levels to the Internet Bill of Rights dynamic coalition which tomorrow will convene to share the progress made so far and to jointly identify the most appropriate way to define the bill of rights. We expect through your participation to bring together a number of actors who will concretely lay down, together with us, with our friends of the Brazilian government, and all the others, the basis of an Internet Bill of Rights. We know that it will be a long and difficult process, and it is not only a question of establishing governance principles of the largest existing space in the world, but also to identify the instruments able to guarantee afterwards that they become a reference system for the international community. In this view, we also look with expectation to the possibility of reaching an agreement in order to define a kind of "high commissioner" of Internet rights. In conclusion, I am certain that the well-known competence of Minister Gilberto Gil, of Professor Stefano Rodotà, and of all of the participants, will make tomorrow's workshop a fundamental step forward towards the creation of an Internet Bill of Rights. I am looking forward to meet you all tomorrow. Thank you very much for your attention.

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Mr. Vimercati. Next speaker, I recommend the speakers to obey to the five minutes, six minutes extension. Next speaker, Mr. Kiyoshi Mori, vice minister for policy coordination, minister of communications, Japan.

KIYOSHI MORI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Brazilian government. It is my great honor to have this opportunity of making a speech at the opening ceremony which is held here in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro. As we all know, the Internet has developed rapidly since its commercialization in 1994, and the number of its users is going to exceed one billion worldwide. There are many advantages of using the Internet. The Net can provide access to diversified choices in goods and services, activate communication between people, and improve productivity of various industries. Toward this goal, all stakeholders, including the participants of this IGF meeting, must cooperate with each other in order to deploy the Internet further and share its fruits among all peoples around the world. Achieving such a good goal will not be easy. There are many issues to be tackled. And active challenges are needed to resolve those issues. I strongly believe that one of the important purposes of IGF meetings is to learn and share the experiences of the challenges with each other in order to make it easier to accomplish the ultimate goal of Internet deployment throughout society. According to ITU report in 2006, Japan has achieved the most inexpensive and fastest Internet access in the world. I think there are two main reasons behind this. Firstly, we established a national strategy for the ICT development. In the year 2001, we launched the e-Japan strategy, which promoted nationwide spread of broadband networks. In addition, in 2004, we set a ubiquitous Japan policy, which was aiming at enabling ICT connection to anyone at any time anywhere and with anything. Secondly, we promoted competition policy in the telecommunications market. In particular, the unbundling of the dominant carrier's facilities and the formulation of collocation rules allowed new entrants to the market. Thanks to this, innovations and new services had been developed which allowed charges to be dramatically lowered and increased consumer benefits. Although having achieved a significant development in the ICT field, we still have many things to cope with. As conventional telecommunications network is rapidly replaced by I.P.-based network, we are facing various new issues. I will point out three main issues. First, there is the issue of network neutrality. With more I.P. networks and broadband connections, more variety of services are being provided. As a result, the volume of packet traffic has increased and resulted in network congestion. Fair use and equal cost-bearing of the network infrastructure is becoming serious issues. Second is the competition policy issue that arises from the next-generation network. The next-generation network is expected to improve efficiency of network operation and reliability. Consequently, we have to establish the new competition rule to secure the mutual connection as well as the openness of service platform of the network. Third, it is necessary to promote information security. We have to improve the reliability of the network and applications, in addition to ensuring the essential communications in disasters and other emergency situations. In conclusion, I have shared with you our country's experiences and achievements, as well as our awareness of the issues, considering that our life can be improved through proper use of the Internet as a vital tool and that this IGF meeting is significant as the place for information-sharing towards that purpose. With advanced use of the Internet, new issues that we have not experienced before could emerge in the future. It is important to put our heads together to continue our efforts to tackle the issues and to find the exercise the best way forward. We believe that the IGF meetings can contribute to creating a path from the missing link to the collaboration link through open and free discussions. And Japan is ready to support positively such a movement with all of you. Thank you for your kind attention.

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Mr. Mori. Next speaker, Mr. John Klensin, consultant.

JOHN KLENSIN: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I seem to be the odd person in this session's agenda, since I do not have the privilege of speaking for a government or a large and important organization. I do, however, have some experience with the development of the Internet itself, and I hope I can share some perspective from the standpoint of the technical development of the Internet and how we got to where we are today within with a network which is serving billions of users and looking forward to serving billions more. Contrary to what one might infer from some of the conversations and discussions and publications one has seen in recent years, the Internet was not developed and invented in 1962 -- in 1992. Some of us have been involved in work on what has become the Internet in its concepts since the late '60s, for nearly four decades. And many of us have understood since then that this would ultimately become a global network if it was successful at all. It isn't perfect. In general, we preferred to get something working and implemented and deployed rather than getting it perfect, spending endless years of exploration and discussions about how every possible need could be accommodated. Had we chosen the course of discussion and accommodation of all needs, there probably would not be a working Internet today. The possibility of substituting discussion for deployment and access remains a risk today. One of the things I think we all need to understand and remember as these discussions in IGF and elsewhere go forward is, whatever you like about the present nature of the Internet and its reach, it is important to remember that the design, independent of funding and other initiatives, is not a consequence of any action by governments or intergovernmental associations. Among the many myths about the Internet is one that assumes the technological design and development community, especially the applications-level development community, has historically not cared about the rest of you or the rest of the world's populations. Or has simply been naive about the social and political implications of a network like this. We've been concerned about making the Internet available to more people in more countries for a rather long time. There were serious discussions about multiscript naming and connectivity and content by 1972, including the first of many proposals as to how to do that. The notion that we didn't start thinking about these issues until people started talking about making the Internet multilingual the last few years just has no basis. Our Japanese colleagues had Kanji content on the Internet by 1987 and were actively using it in e-mail. Standards were in place for interoperable multilingual content by 1992, and were deployed rapidly after that, including being carried over into the Web. The original host naming rules that ultimately became the domain name rules were built on a foundation that considered national use characters and national character sets. The decision to exclude those characters wasn't based on an ignorant preference for English or Roman-based characters, but on the fact that the technology at that stage just had not matured enough for more international use and the observation that the use of multiple characters and multiple options has a tendency to make things less interoperable if these become choices. It is programs useful to note that the ITU and ISO made very similar decisions about identifiers for the network protocols associated with X25, and with key ISO identifiers for approximately the same reasons. Especially in less-developed countries, far more of the early connections that were sustainable and that had developed into today's Internet environment were the result of largely private sector, bottom-up efforts rather than major top-down initiatives. Mutual assistance networks for identifying e-mail connectivity paths came into existence in the early 1980s. Private efforts to get developing countries connected at least by e-mail and then with full Internet connections came about five years later, in the mid-1980s. Many of the Internet governance problems which we see today and see discussed are neither new nor Internet-specific, but are generalizations of more traditional problems, sometimes in rather thin disguises. For the subset of those issues that are appearing as generalizations, most of the reasons for casting them as new topics seem to involve more to do with topics and objectives other than getting the Internet spread and deployed and usable. Throughout history, at least modern history, we've noticed that criminals and pornographers have often been more efficient about adopting and adapting to new technologies, especially communications technologies, to their needs than most of us have been capable of adopting those technologies. We need to accept that and move forward with better technology, but, more important, better rules and better social structures and better societal constraints, rather than attacking the technology itself and risking damaging what in many respects a conference like this is here to celebrate. Unacceptable behaviors, including stalking, extortion, fraud, deliberate deception, are not really different, whether done face to face or over an electronic communications technology such as the Internet. The Internet may call for better intergovernmental arrangements and agreements about prosecuting these crimes across borders and better technology for identifying the perpetrators. But we have precedence for those kinds of agreements which do not require new structures. Each proposed action that treats an unacceptable behavior differently depending on whether it's performed over the Internet or in some other context should be examined very carefully, and I believe with some suspicion. Finally, almost every decision which has been made about the Internet, from the beginnings to the recent times, both technological and policy, has had advantages and disadvantages. In the last decade or so, and as a community, I believe we have been very poor at looking at both those advantages and disadvantages and understanding that we're making tradeoffs. At least in retrospect, creation of a market in domain name -- domain names has caused not only cybersquatting, but also phishing. Without the market, those problems would probably not exist in their present form. Creation of an e-mail regime that permits anyone to communicate with anyone else without having to be registered with and going through government-authorized providers, on models similar to the old PTTs, has turned e-mail and now instant messaging into important worldwide communications tools. But it also helps facilitate the work of the spammer and virus-spreaders. Even the decision to build useful and productive meetings like this and hold them involves implicit decisions to not invest the resources in, for example, clean water or alleviating hunger. In each case, I'd like to believe that we, as a community, have made the right decisions. But we need to remember, I believe, that there are alternatives and, conversely, selecting those alternatives would have changed some of the things that we appreciate today. Thank you again, and best wishes for a successful meeting.

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Mr. Klensin. Next speaker, Ms. Maud de Boer-Bucquicchio, deputy secretary general of the Council of Europe.

MAUD DE BOER-BUCQUICCHIO: Mr. Chairman, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the Council of Europe, which I represent, is an organization which brings together 47 of the 48 European countries on our continent to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Our primary task is to enforce, through the European court of human rights, the European convention on human rights. The bill of rights of the whole European continent, which applies both off and on-line. Our message, Europe's main message, is clear. We want to secure people's enjoyment of a maximum of rights and services, with minimum restrictions, while at the same time seeking to ensure the level of security that users are entitled to expect. This is why our organization adopted, just five days ago, a policy recommendation for our governments on promoting the public service value of the Internet. We in Europe, we want an affordable, unrestricted, safe and diverse access to the Internet. My time is short, so I will limit myself to a few brief points. First, the Internet is our business. It belongs to all of us, and must not become a virtual jungle in which its inherent freedom and anonymity are abused by criminals. These people may be operating in a virtual world, but the harm they cause is very real. Our response has been the Council of Europe convention on cybercrime and its protocol, the only existing international treaty dealing in a comprehensive manner and in full respect of human rights with crimes committed through the use of the Internet. It has been signed so far by 43 countries around the world. I encourage other countries to seek accession to the convention as soon as possible. The broader the membership, the fewer the hiding places. My second point is about children who represent one of the biggest categories of Internet users. The Internet empowers them, but it also creates new threats to their safety. Sexual exploitation of children is of course one of such threats. And this is why the Council of Europe convention for the protection of children against sexual exploitation and abuse outlaws groomers and pedo-pornographers and reinforces considerably international cooperation. This treaty too is open to non-European countries and I encourage all states to sign up to it. Let me also take the occasion to announce the birth this week in Strasbourg of a new city, an e-city, made for and with children. It will be hosted on our Web site, and its aim is very simple: Empower children so that they can contribute to a better world nearer to their hopes and dreams. To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, we in Europe, adults and children alike, we have a dream and an ambition. The dream is to make democratic citizenship a reality for all on the World Wide Web. Our ambition is to show the world the way to achieve this. Thank you for your attention

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Ms. Boer-Bucquicchio. Next speaker, Ms. Catherine Trautmann, member of European parliament.

CATHERINE TRAUTMANN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. As another European voice, I wish to affirm the strong engagement of all the YAWU (phonetic) institutions in the process of the IGF which is, for us, a special and unique space for discussion between all who are involved in Internet governance. This platform gives us a common context of ideas, experiences, and propositions in which we can find inspiration for decision and action. The main topics brings the framework and continuity we need to bring our points of view closer. The adjunction of new items like critical resources, semantic web, protection of children, bill of rights and others shows that the method is open so that the responsibility of the results belongs to the stakeholders. I want to mention now the key points which we hope will be taken in consideration by the participants. Two words express basically the goal of Internet governance: Security and privacy. That means that the respect of fundamental rights and especially of freedom of expression a must be considered as a truly unquestioned principle of information society. There is no free economy, free information if the freedom of individuals, NGOs and journalists has no sufficient guarantee. It's vital to counter attempts of censorship and ensure that Internet's capability to be a means of free expression is maintained. We must also ensure that technological convergence and economical concentration don't constitute impediments to freedom and diversity. That's why the respect of structural qualities on the Internet, openness and interoperability, is needed favoring complimentarity of a superiority of platforms to reinforce its successful ability to boost innovation and creativity in our global knowledge economy as in the resumption of social injustice and the risky consequences of climate change. Security and stability of Internet are amongst our priorities because we think without them the citizens will not enjoy the benefits which the Internet offers and prohibited business will increase as will the violence against people like harassment or threats. Children must be especially secure online. It's very important that this topic can be discussed at the IGF. We know that practical solutions are expected to bridge the digital divide. This is not only about access and connectivity linked to energetic issues as well but also about access to excess which encompasses education and long life learning. It is also important to talk about I.P. address allocation, organizations dealing with this issue are encouraged to continue their work towards shaping allocation policies of I.P. addresses, in a way respecting the justified needs of the developing countries. Internet is in constant evolution in its technical aspects as well as in its services. For example, the Internet of things is the subject of more and more deliberations and sometimes (inaudible). As a concept, Internet of things needs concretization and it would be good to take and discuss this topic which is an emerging issue in public policy perspective in the agenda of the next 2008 IGF meeting. Let me finish in expressing the hope that a successful meeting of the IGF will motivate institutional partners of the enhanced cooperation to join the movement, and with some efforts participate to this mutual benefit. States must elaborate their discussion, strategy, and method as IGF build its own. Transparency, flexibility, and reciprocity. It's not only a hope. I think it's a necessity, because we want a free, safe, and democratic Internet. Thank you

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Ms. Trautmann. Next speaker, Mr. Jainder Singh, permanent secretary, department of information technology, India.

JAINDER SINGH: Mr. Chairman, participants from across the world, it is indeed a pleasure to speak at this IGF in Rio de Janeiro. ICTs are a fundamental all element of all emerging global knowledge societies. They may lead to greater opportunities for those who can partake of them, but they may also lead to greater exclusion for those who cannot. While India is a leading country in the I.T. sector globally the benefits of the Internet revolution have not fully percolated to the everyday life of the common man. This is particularly true for those in the rural areas. Inclusive development is an imperative. We are of the view that the IGF needs to maintain the overall development orientation across all the themes. There are several challenges that must be addressed in order to make the vision of a truly inclusive knowledge society a reality. Perhaps the first challenge towards enabling a solution on such a large scale is to review the issues relating to access. Broadband access, access to technology, access to content. This is no easy matter, especially in India which is demographically and linguistically so diverse. I propose to give an example from India. The government has launched an ambitious process to establish 100,000 village Internet kiosks a national broadband network is being rolled out to give connectivity to these centers. This would provide access to 600,000 villages. These centers are being established through a public/private partnership model. The centers would provide access to education, telemedicine, public services, remote banking, and entertainment to hitherto unreached sections of society. These 100,000 centers are expected to be operational by December 2008. Capacity building is a private area to enable meaningful participation of a larger number of people in the use of the Internet. This is critical because of the challenges posed not only by illiteracy but also by information illiteracy. Diversity is particularly important. In India, which is a truly multilingual society, only a relatively small percentage of Indians can read and write English. We believe that Indians should be able to use the Internet in they're own languages. We have as many as 22 official languages, and 11 scripts. In this context, Internationalized Domain Names assume importance. We are an open society, and as a democratic nation we support the principles of openness in the Internet domain. We need to focus on security aspects as well. The stakeholders in the Internet need to do more to promote Internet security. There is a greater need to exchange and make available data pertaining to incidents as well as to technological solutions to resolve and prevent such incidents. We already have more than 200 million mobile users. We are now adding 7 million users every month. This makes us the fastest growing mobile market in the world. We hope that India would also be able to achieve similar growth in the Internet arena. The third IGF will be held in New Delhi from December 8th to 11th 2008. The IGF is an evolving process of continuity. We are sure that the fruitful discussion of this second IGF will set the tone for the evolving dialogue in the third IGF. Discussions on the five themes of this IGF would be continued in the New Delhi IGF meeting. This IGF, and in particular the way forward working session, will indicate the issues which are to be considered important. It is in the keeping of the spirit of the IGF philosophy of inclusiveness, the deliberations in New Delhi could perhaps also cover the universalization of the Internet and implications for governance. Development could also be treated alongside the other themes so that attention could be paid to this dimension. We anticipate that the issues such as access challenges in rural areas and capacity building would be discussed in the third IGF. The security of Internet resources and the need for cooperation among stakeholders and nations could be part of this agenda. The broad multistakeholder format would be followed. The discussion in the IGF would no doubt reflect the principles of multilateralism, democracy and transparency of Internet governance. It is an honor and privilege for us to welcome all the delegates and the participants to take part in the IGF 2008 in New Delhi. The weather will be lovely at that time of the year and I hope you will all be able to come to New Delhi in December next year. I take this opportunity to thank Brazil for hosting this meeting of the Internet Governance Forum. Thank you

GILBERTO GIL: Thank you, Mr. Singh. I am the next and the last speaker.

GILBERTO GIL: I am certain that politics are being re-invented here. We all know about the huge challenges our imagination and our intelligence received with the existence of the Internet. All of that means today a new proposal for political spheres in contemporary societies. We are reviewing the ideas that oriented the social spaces and values, spaces that were called cities or republics before. The names that were given to this public, Republic, which would be the space for the co-existence of people no matter how different their cultures and economic conditions. The Internet is the new example of this immaterial society. It is symbolic and creates a space to exist fully for all differences. It is the concrete example of this fabric of cities and spaces in contemporary life. We find in the word "governance" a way to exemplify what political processes require for us to come to minimal agreement and consultations. We are practicing here in this ritual of approximation and mutual knowledge. We are now approaching this novelty in new policies. However, there are conflicts that go beyond lack of knowledge. It's different points of view that need to be taken into account. We have to pay lots of attention to that. Just our active and critical collaboration will be capable of absorbing the different needs that are at stake in the new era of communications and exchange. Our imagination must invent new frameworks allowing us to regulate these conflicts for the benefit of all and for the establishment of a common environment of cooperation. We need to state that our cooperation to create public policies in this world summit which takes place in the City of Rio de Janeiro has for purpose to invert the picture of asymmetries that we see today. I can see that our discussion will progress during these days, taking yet another step along the past that will lead us to a global public policy. I think, and I am persuaded, that the new technologies are the infinite possibilities that our civilization has built for the exercise of its own freedom, new relationships and freedoms. Now this language that follows standards different from traditional ones must be accessible to all, because until all of us are free, then each one of us is less free than he or she could be. The treaty established by UNESCO is a very important framework showing the path towards a good relationship between states and societies. We are in an era when access for all to the knowledge generated by mankind is the only condition for us to have justice and safety. We are becoming aware of the fact that the intensity of conflicts increases as systems of deprivation increases for populations and territories. The Internet must be a territory for all, an area of public coexistence for the exercise of this new citizenship. There is a promise which needs to be fulfilled and carried forward by each one of us present here today. We have to help prevail the spirit which is behind each word. And we must not allow our speeches to empty or meaning. We need to have a live economy supporting symbolic values and densities. A true economics. We have to be able to navigate on this ocean along its flows in order to weave the networks and links that dynamize our contemporary society. And these words just need to remind us all that our speeches and our languages should be focused on this greater aspiration that brings us all here and which is our reason to be, our possible worlds are built and spread by our voices. The Internet is transnational. It cannot be under the control of a country or even of some country. We need an ecology for the network like we need an ecology for the planet. And to deal with these issues, we need perhaps to think about extending the mandate of the United Nations on the subject. We need to establish a post-multistakeholder system, a new multistakeholderism. Thank you.

IGF Opening Ceremony 2.1

SÉRGIO REZENDE: We call this session to order. We are already late. We have to catch up. But I have to say a few words. I chose to say very few words in the opening session, and chose to speak a little bit in more detail in this section here. So I speak for about ten minutes, but then we have several speakers, and I am asking the speakers to be short. Otherwise, I will not be able to finish on time. The Brazilian government authorities are honored to host the second Internet Governance Forum, the IGF. It's an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to this beautiful and hospitable city of Rio de Janeiro. To host people from all over the world here to discuss and exchange experience on the issues relating to this great recent conquest of mankind, the Internet. As you all know, ladies and gentlemen, this forum, organized by the United Nations, is a legacy of the two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society, held in two parts, in Geneva and in Tunis, where Brazil was an active participant. This world summit was convened by the United Nations general assembly, with the essential purpose of setting guidelines for information and community technologies to be able to make a decisive contribution to achieving the millenium development goals. The millenium development goals seek to meet the basic needs of promoting the development, freedom, and human dignity and to eradicate human poverty. The IGF has a mission to discuss and find ways to ensure that Internet can be a tool for meeting the principles and commitments of the Tunis Agenda, to build an Information Society which is inclusive, human centered, and geared to development. Access to effective use of Internet and information technologies are an essential factor for societies to achieve competitiveness and to develop their nations. These instruments provide a new paradigm for social organization, which has been called the Information Society. And contribute significantly to social, economic, and cultural development for all peoples.

Internet has tremendous potential for promoting a global partnership for development as advocated in the Millenium Development Goals. However, if this global communications environment is to be effective, Internet requires the participation of all peoples. The basic characteristics of the Internet, the essence, if you like, is cooperation, access for all to an agreed common communication protocol, interconnection between regional networks, to create a network of networks, and to share the information in these networks. Without the spirit of sharing, of connectivity, of mutual support, Internet will lose its strength as a way of promoting global development. We will lose an opportunity to communicate between nations, we will lose the support for information and communication services and technologies. Lastly, without the participation and cooperation of all, the Internet cannot be sure nor stable. That's why we defend Internet governance that is representative and balanced. Balanced in terms of countries and regions, but also balanced in terms of the different sectors of society. We stand for a type of governance which is not the preserve of any particular country's government. Equal treatment for all nations is a pre-condition to building global confidence in the functioning of the Internet, and thus promoting the sustainability of Internet. Despite its localized origin, starting with the development of ARPANET for the scientific community in the United States, initially, subsequently a global network, Internet is the result of many, many revolutionary contributions made by various individuals and bodies from different countries. Some of them are here. With the advent of effective navigators and the World Wide Web, Internet has spread to all sectors of societies, to all countries. It has become a tool used by all of us to exchange messages, to gain access to information through the use of effective, efficient research engines. It is also a tool for remote education, for e-trade, for e-government. And lastly, it is a way in which people, entities, businesses and governments communicate with each other, cooperate and carry out financial and commercial transactions. The Internet is essential for the growth of the individual and for the growth of nations. It requires a participation, cooperation of all. It is a universal good of public interest. As such, governance needs to focus on this public goods aspect and needs to be focused on the development of the human individual, and must be focused on building a more just society on our planet. Education is today largely recognized as fundamental to development for people and nations. However -- And everyone calls for the universalization of that education. We need to recognize that Internet is an effective tool for communication and the information technologies also promoting universalization. The digital divide that exists today needs to be eliminated because it is a factor which increases disparities in levels of development among countries with the tragic consequences we are all aware of. Digital inclusion is an essential objective to build a more just and more harmonious world. The developing countries-- Sorry, the developed countries whose people, for the most part, do have computers, have access to the Internet, the developed countries must contribute to digital inclusion programs for the poor countries. And the developing countries must intensify their efforts to expand the use of computers and to allow people to have access to Internet. In Brazil, the government of President Lula has made great progress to that end. The Computers for All program has resulted to a significant drop in the cost of personal computers which has allowed less well-off families to acquire computers and has considerably expanded the market for computers. This year, about 10 million PCs will be made in Brazil. We also have digital inclusion programs. These programs seek, by 2010, the end of the current government's term, to ensure that 140,000 government schools have access to Internet, most of them through a broadband connection. This forum in Rio de Janeiro is one of the four fundamental subjects which will be discussed here on access, diversity, openness and security. This IGF will also discuss the vital subject of the use of Internet resources and the administration of those critical resources. We also believe we need to discuss here how critical resources of the Internet, including administration of domain names and numbers, can be managed in a coherent way in keeping with the principles of Tunis. The governance of Internet must be structured in order to meet these needs without in any way jeopardizing the efficiency of the Internet with a view to finding quick solutions to urgent issues which is required in order to keep up the dynamism which is the characteristic of the development of the Internet. In addition to these core resources, then, there will also be discussion of other issues here for the first time, emerging issues such as incentives and competition and content production. Let us ensure access to knowledge as one of the objectives to be achieved. In this sense, the Tunis Agenda seeks more recognition of the role that can be played by open systems and alternative licensing schemes to promote digital inclusion and the construction of a virtual environment, a collaborative environment that promotes development. On the preservation and promotion of cultural diversity, this is of fundamental importance for universal acceptance of Internet. We attach great importance to the development of a charter of Internet rights. The development agenda adopted by the United Nations, by the World Intellectual Property Organization October this year, is an innovative way of reorienting the discussions on intellectual property. Security, without any doubt, is a concern and also a challenge for all of us. This is a subject which needs to be discussed in detail. We need to respect the fundamental rights of the individual, including freedom of expression, while avoiding excessive controls which would restrict such rights and which would limit the flow of information. We must support mechanisms to combat cyber crime, particularly to protect children against sexual abuse and exploitation. Respect for fundamental rights in the Internet must not be assured without access to knowledge. In this respect, the Tunis Agenda empowered and recognized the role to be developed by open standards and by free software, especially in the construction of a virtual environment, which is collaborative and favorable to development, as well as promoting digital inclusion. Ladies and gentlemen, Brazil remains committed to the Tunis Agenda and with the implementation of commitments taken on at the world summit about the Information Society. The committee of the Internet in Brazil is a successful national experience in the management of the national names domain, the managing committee is made up by representatives of the government of civil society and of the private sector as well as the academic community. This is a participative model of Internet governance at national level, fully in agreement with the principles of multilateralism, transparency and democracy. The IGF here in Brazil, we have less formality, and the presence of nongovernmental actors, and the open possibility for everyone to participate as individuals or users of the Internet turn this forum into a very special instance. Finally, I couldn't but once again emphasize the need for a wide program for training society, especially in less developed countries, training them in the useful use of the Internet and of information technology. The exclusion of a considerable part of mankind from the society of information would represent a tragedy that would jeopardize the political and economic stability of the world. To conclude on behalf of the Brazilian government, I wish you all an excellent stay in Brazil. Good Luck, and success in this collective undertaking for all of us. Thank you very much, and have a very good day.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Now I would like to call to present his words, Mr. Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general, International Telecommunication Union, ITU.

HAMADOUN TOURÉ: Good morning. Mr. Chairman, being the first speaker, I will use one of the ITU traditions in congratulating you for all the coming speakers so that they save time in not repeating that. So on behalf of all the speakers, I would like to congratulate you for your brilliant election

HAMADOUN TOURÉ: And also thank the organizers and the host country for all the good things that have done. I hope that will save one minute of each of the speakers' time. Thank you very much. I would like to express my gratitude of being here, in addressing this. As Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, I have been in the office just for one year, and my main focus has been on ICT development. And as you all know, it is very close to my heart. The WSIS process has been a very open and transparent one, and I'm very pleased that -- to restate that very important step that was decided in the ITU plenipotentiary conference in 1998, and at the time the main reason for organizing WSIS was that we were close to the deadline of not bridging the digital divide. Actually, the deadline for the so-called missing link. And I would just like to remind you that the monster is not only bigger but it's faster. Therefore, we need to put real action into all the talks that we are making here. And I hope that the Rio forum will be a very good continuation of the Athens forum and will also come to really concrete results. I am summarizing my speech here. It's 20 pages long. I hope you don't want me to read it all. I will make it available for you, but I will just say a few bullet points in here. The ITU has been cooperating with all stakeholders since the Tunis Summit, and we are very pleased with the progress made so far in many areas. And I want to take the opportunity to thank all the partners who have been working with us. ITU is mainly busy in three main areas: Standardization, development issues, capacity building in development, and we will host this week a couple of forums on those two issues. I believe that capacity building will be one of the most important thing for our countries, for all to really join the Information Society. And we need to work together to build, really and concretely, an inclusive Information Society where there will be equal opportunity for all. One of the key roles in the standards development, our work on DSL and cable, wire-line, broadband standards have made end users' broadband a reality for hundreds of millions of users over the last few years. ITU-T developed X509 as the definitive reference recommendation for electronic authentication over public networks and public key infrastructure, PKIs. ITU is now carrying out vital work establishing standards on new generation networks, or NGN, based on Internet protocol technologies that will eventually replace the current PSTN. ITU is also conducting a number of related work programs with global scope in areas such as IPTV, cybersecurity, multi-major coding, using ITU voice and video standards. Through the development sector, ITU is assisting developing countries in using information and communication technologies as an engine for accelerated development, social and economic development, national prosperity, and global competitiveness. The Connect the World initiative is based on building multistakeholder process to achieve bold targets in ICT connectivity. Some of you may have been in Kigali with us just two weeks ago where we launched the first Connect the World series in connecting Africa, summits in Kigali, which was very successful. Finally, ITU plays an important role in capacity building in ICTs and in providing a forum for discussion of urgent policy issues by means of events such as the global symposium for regulators, and world telecommunication policy forums with systematic meetings and workshops on Internet governance, cybersecurity, and Spam, among others.

Let me also mention that the innovation that has characterized the development of the Internet over the past 30 years will innovatively lead to a change in the landscape, shifting of roles, of key players, and the introduction of a new type of competition on the theme we are here to discuss. Experience shows that the more we resist change, the higher the pressure for change. Having witnessed the changes in the ITU landscape, I'm certainly in a very good position to say this. In summary, what is needed is next-generation Internet governance, the development of an enabling environment that assists governments to foster supportive, transparent, pro-competitive policy, as well as a legal and regulatory framework to provide appropriate incentives for investment and community development in the information society. What is needed is the development of an overarching and enduring architecture based on policy, legal and regulatory initiatives with intergovernmental collaboration, and capacity-building efforts may be made toward finding common international technical and policy approaches to promote an enabling environment globally, offering the maximum benefits to society. In conclusion, I would like to remind you all of the spirit of the WSIS that is of inconclusion, cooperation, and tolerance. Let the beautiful skies of Rio be the uniting force for this meeting. Thank you very much.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Mr. Touré. I would like now to ask Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director, Association for Progressive Communications, APC.

ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, chairman. And thank you, Mr. Touré, for cutting some of my speech. It's -- one always prepares something beforehand. But I think like other speakers and like the chair in his introduction indicated, the Internet has enormous potential for contributing to all aspects of human development. And we in my organization believe it's a public good, and therefore it should be governed as a public good based on public interest principles. And also, this governance should take place in the public domain. We need all institutions and all processes that are involved in governance of the Internet to be transparent, to facilitate participation, and participation from all stakeholders, and participation in decision-making, to provide access to information. And this is a very broad -- this does not apply just to ICANN; this applies to all aspects of Internet policy and government. On the themes of the forum, we think there are some key issues. Some of them have been addressed already. In the security theme, as was said by the chair, unless you link human rights and the right to privacy and other freedoms to security, you can create a less-secure environment rather than a more-secure environment. And we urge the IGF to maintain this link. In the theme of openness, we think there are two primary issues to be addressed. On the one hand, freedoms, freedom of expression, and the removal of barriers to people being able to use the Internet in any way they want to. And on the other hand, standards. Increasingly, there are standards being made outside of public spaces that have social implications that limit what people can do with the Internet. And the IGF needs to address this. This touches on issues of intellectual property, interoperability between different applications and devices. And these are things that impact on the cost. Why should blind people pay more for interfaces to read text because they're blind and because someone owns a royalty on making two applications talk to one another? This is wrong. On the issue of access, I think as has been said, it's really vital. We heard already, five billion people in the world do not have access. We hear proclamations about wireless solutions, about private sector investment and initiatives driven by governments, by intergovernmental organizations. And, yet, there are still five billion people in the world without access. The IGF needs to prioritize this. And then on diversity, I think what we would say about diversity is that the key to addressing diversity is, it's almost as an equation, if you put openness and access together, you will have diversity. If you remove the barriers that are created by rigid, proprietary intellectual property regimes, you will have more creation, more innovation. So let's focu on diversity as an issue, and linguistic diversity, cultural diversity. But let's remember that by creating more access and more openness, we will immediately, automatically achieve more diversity. And then, finally, about ICANN. I think that we would like to commend the IGF for putting critical Internet resources on the agenda. It's an important issue. But there's also a lot more to talk about other than ICANN. And I've already highlighted many of these issues. So while not avoiding talking about controversial issues, let's not let them dominate the space for the next few days, because there are many other critical issues. And that is why we are here.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Ms. Esterhuysen. I'd like to now call Mr. Guy Sebban, Secretary-General for the International Chamber of Commerce, ICC.

GUY SEBBAN: Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am very pleased to be here no longer Rio to participate in this opening ceremony of the second annual Internet Governance Forum. I am very proud to speak on behalf of the business community just after the distinguished representative of ITU, an intergovernmental organization, and after the representation by Anriette on behalf of civil society. It's important, in fact, to keep in mind these three main actors, which are called stakeholders. And this multistakeholder stakeholder approach, on an equal footing, is certainly something that we appreciate very much in the previous session of the IGF in Athens. As you can notice, I have applied the rule that our friend has given us, and I have said nothing to thank everybody. But I cannot go on without thanking not only the organizers and the participants, but also to thank Brazil as a country and all the Brazilian representatives for hosting us here. About the goals of this series of meetings called "IGF." In Athens, we have set the goals and objectives. It was to exchange between specialists, between representatives of civil society, between business people, between representatives of governments on different issues which are directly linked with Internet governance. In this sense, the Athens meeting was a great success. But we have to go further. All these issues should be treated with a lot of attention. And all the discussions that have started in Athens should go on and be deepened and broadened. And that is paving the way also for the next meetings that will take place in India in 2008. Maybe two words about Brazil. Brazil is one of the four "BRIC" countries, as we call them usually. And it's incredible to see the development of this country, and especially in the field of information and communication technology. The reason why this development has occurred is probably because Brazil has applied some basic rules which are very well known to foster the development of new technologies and to foster entrepreneurship. This big country is a democracy, respecting the rule of law, respecting intellectual property rights, and has put in place the right infrastructure to help the development of information and communication technologies. We see in this country great possibility for Internet connection, and in some cases, you can get that even for free. That's for the aspects linked with governments. But I have said that we have also to take into account the role and responsibility of the business community. Usually business is associated with technology. And business has invested a lot in research and development, and also in physical investments, in order to help different people to enjoy the benefits of Internet and all the information and communication technologies. Not being a specialist in this area, I will just read some new technological development that have occurred in this area. Quantum leaps in computing memory through rapid advances in cheap technology, powerful machines in units so small that they are undetectable by the human eye, nano technologies, face recognition software for better security in the airports, smart engines, social networking, thanks to Web 2.0, long-distance medical monitoring and long-distance learning, and the list goes on. I could spend a lot of time explaining all the new developments that are due to technology in which the business community has invested a lot in terms of people and money. But to be successful, it's not enough to have on one side as governments and the intergovernmental organizations playing the role and on the other side the businesses trying also to reach some objectives. I think the key word in this arena is certainly "cooperation." And this cooperation between these actors -- governments, business, civil society -- is absolutely essential. And the business community not only investing and making research, has also spent a lot of efforts in order to convince the governments to put in place the right legislative framework. For us, this is absolutely key to create what is called this enabling environment, which means that the governments are really putting in place the right condition for attracting business in the different countries. But all these efforts finally are done for what reason? I think it's mainly also to satisfy the needs of individuals. And it's a pity to see that only a small proportion of the people living on this earth have access to these technologies. So I think all these efforts should be made for permitting access to the many billions of people who don't enjoy this possibility. You know that our organization, ICC, has launched an initiative called BASIS. And I just wanted to tell you two things about our organization. First of all, it's that we have recently published a booklet which is called "An Inventory of Policy Position and Practical Guidance," in which we have put all the position papers and the policy positions that we have developed in our commission. That's one achievement of a team of many experts. And we are very pleased to offer you this booklet, which is available here on our store. And a last word about our organization. In Athens, we have organized one workshop. Here, in Rio, we are organizing two workshops. That means that we will have one which is organized with the Oxford Institute on security, which seems to be also a very important topic these days. And we will focus in this workshop mainly on digital identity management and on identification. The second workshop is about multistakeholder policy development processes, which is very important. And we are co-organizing that with the French Foreign Ministry of Affairs and the Association for Progressive Communication, the Swiss Off. Comm., and also Congo. So it's a true multistakeholder participation. And we invite all of you to participate as much as you can to these workshops. So I would conclude now my remarks. And I would like to thank you very much for your attention and for your presence and for your energy and your enthusiasm to participate in this forum and make it a great success. Thank you.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Mr. Sebban. I'm afraid we are lagging in time. I have to ask the speakers again to be as brief as they can. And I'd like to call now Ms. Lynn St. Amour, president and CEO of the Internet Society.

LYNN ST. AMOUR: It is a great pleasure for me to be near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Internet Governance Forum this week. And thank you to all those who made it possible. I would like to share with you the perspective I bring to the IGF as president and CEO of the Internet Society. And today, the message I would like to focus on is best captured by the possibly somewhat overexposed phrase "think globally and act locally." ISOC is an independent, international nonprofit organization with more than 26,000 members in 180 countries and over 180 chapters spread around the world. We are proud to have been established by two of the fathers of the Internet, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. And, in fact, Vint was the first executive director of the Internet Society. ISOC has promoted the open development and growth of the Internet since 1992. We are the organizational home for the Internet Engineering Task Force, IETF. We work globally and locally and for over 15 years, our activities, particularly in developing countries, have helped expand the reach of the Internet and worked to strengthen the local environment and increase local capacities of all kinds. A healthy and robust Internet requires local conditions that support an environment characterized by choice, connectivity, and active communities, an environment in which skills development, capacity-building, and local content development are real priorities, an environment in which businesses are attracted by enabling public policy environments and predictable investment climates. These characteristics are not particular to the Internet or to the Internet's deployment. They are fundamental to a nation's economic and social development. For the Internet to be a powerful instrument that increases productivity, generates economic growth, job creation, and employability and improve the quality of life for all, it needs conditions in which it can flourish. This is no trivial matter. It is not easy. Yet these conditions are essential to bringing the next billion people online. And the billion after that, the billion after that, the billion after that, the billion after that. By the time we get those billion people online, there will be several more billion that need to come online. The Internet Governance Forum presents all stakeholders with a unique opportunity to catalyze local change. The IGF is not only a forum for dialogue, but it is a medium that should encourage fundamental change at the local level to empower communities, build capacity and skills, enable the Internet's expansion, thereby contributing to economic and social development. The results of the IGF must be to contribute to and support the deployment of the Internet, and fundamentally, this must be done at the local level. So let us leverage the IGF to bring forth the tools, skills, and knowledge to empower all stakeholders, including governments, to effect this change. To succeed, we must preserve and promote the spirit and intent of the IGF. We must preserve and promote its multistakeholderism, its dynamic, open, and collaborative nature, and its encouragement of open and frank exchanges of views, free from the pressure of negotiations. Supporting and contributing to the evolution of the Internet as an open, decentralized platform for innovation, creativity, and economic opportunity is the best way for the Internet to help improve the lives of people everywhere. We have seen that throughout its history, the Internet has always been defined by the energy and ideas of those who use it. As new communities come online, we are excited by the creativity and innovation they bring, and we are constantly reminded of the duty we all share in supporting their emergence. ISOC encourages all stakeholders to reinvigorate their commitment to assisting new communities to come online and identifying local solutions to the challenges that we all face in ensuring the Internet is for everyone, as we still have a very, very long way to go. Thank you.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Ms. St. Amour. I'd like to call his excellency, Mr. José Mariano Gago, Minister of Science and Technology and Higher Education of Portugal.

JOSÉ MARIANO GAGO: Minister Sérgio Rezende, Minister Gilberto Gil, Secretary-General of the U.N., representatives of governments and international organizations, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, as Acting President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, responsible for policies on the society of information and representative of the Portuguese government, I would like to warmly greet and in Portuguese, the Brazilian government and organizers of this forum. Congratulations and thank you for the hospitality and for the quality of organization of this meeting. Portugal is a justly proud for the success and affirmation of Brazil, which has shown in an exemplary manner tremendous capacity for progress in the conceiving and adopting of policies for the information society in the benefit of its economic and social development. The Brazilian initiative to organize tomorrow a seminar on free access to knowledge in Portuguese-speaking countries deserves our full support, because we are certain that this will stimulate similar actions in other language or regional spaces. The European Union shares from the very first moment the major objectives and the preparation of this IGF, as well as the meetings that preceded it. The European Union was always in favor of the open, diverse, multivaried nature of the forum, which is geographically balanced and made up of organizations of different natures whose wealth is precisely in its innovative nature as to the site of debate and concentration of the forum.

It's not just yet another political, multilateral instance, but it is an open and innovative forum. And this seems to us to be the best way for us to work together to defend the very social innovation the Internet has brought about. The European Union has soon understood that we weren't dealing here with just infrastructures, but these were social networks and movements. The notion of policies for the Information Society in every country as well as at the union school has proved this understanding. Also, the definition of common objectives for the whole European Union is a consequence of this policy. The reference framework adopted, which we call I-2010, enshrines our present goals. European space for information, our bed in the research and the development in information and communication technologies, and encouragement to advanced content and services. Lines of action such as the generalization of the wide band security and neutrality, modernization of public services as in the e-gov and the public bed in the generalized use of the Internet and information technologies for economic competitiveness as well as in health, education, trade, supply, and production of multicultural and multilingual contents for the capacity building and the very breathing of democratic societies. And in the support to social and cultural inclusion and in the support of people with deficiencies or special needs, and more recently, initiatives for the development and views of the RFIT make true in the European Union the political objectives that are the object of mutual assessment, of benchmarking, discussion, exchange of experience between countries and regions. It is this experience that the European Union wishes to share with the rest of the world. The investment of the union in the creation and operation of networks for science and education, not just within its own territory, but also in connection, as happens, with Latin America, with Africa, all the Mediterranean basin, are concrete examples of the wish for cooperation and support to development at global scale. The European Union wishes, of course, its efforts favoring development and knowledge at global scale to find increasing response and partnerships in other spaces, organizations, and countries. And this is what we invite you to. It is not by chance that the World Wide Web model was developed in one of the most important international research laboratories, the Cern, as an open tool of free use. The new forms of development and open organization of the Internet and the role developed by the various organizations intervening in the present open model for governance, especially the ICANN, have shown so far an unprecedented response capacity. The present model is flexible, dynamic. It can be and has been improved, and should continue. Governments should guarantee independence of organizations that participate, especially the ICANN, and guarantee a balance and international openness. It would be going backwards, and this would be unacceptable in our opinion to go back to old forms of multilateralism applied to the Internet. In the last decades, the Internet revolutionizes and expands our expectations for freedom and democratic participation of access to information and knowledge, of plurality of languages and cultures, and the variety and wealth in the action of millions of social actors at planet scale. The Internet has fulfilled a hundred, a thousand times its initial promise, and has opened up new challenges, against free access to the Internet, against the formation of social networks for global information, and against the freedom of expression and access to knowledge, stand all fanaticisms and all enemies of democracy in vain. The World Summit on the Information Society stated what we defend heartily, not just for us in Europe but throughout the world, is the following. And the Geneva declaration says, Information Society and that's outlines in the universal declaration of human rights that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. That this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process. A basic human need, and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere, should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the information society offers. Thank you very much.

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Minister Mariano Gago. I would like to now call Mr. Paul Twomey, president, CEO of ICANN.

PAUL TWOMEY: Minister Rezende, Minister Gil, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating the government of Brazil and the Brazilian Internet community and the United Nations, in particular the IGF Secretariat, for arranging this second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in this remarkable city of Rio de Janeiro. The Internet Governance Forum brings together a diverse group of individuals in the aim of sharing knowledge and experience over and about this one global interoperable Internet. We should all be proud of our achievements so far. Over one billion individuals online. Trillions of dollars of business being conducted over a network which comprises hundreds of millions of computers and devices all communicating with one another across the globe. It has given the individual in our societies an ability to communicate and interact with others unprecedented in human history. It has reformed industries, and caused us to rethink how we view ourselves and our planet. But with this extraordinary change also comes challenges. And that is what this forum is about: Bringing together people to talk, review, discuss, and hopefully envision solutions to some of the issues that are before us. The agenda of this meeting captures them. Most important, of course, as others have said, is access. Our discussions here will mean nothing to someone not able to get onto the network in the first place. And the challenge now is to ensure that we bring the next billion people online. Diversity, openness, security, access, critical internet resources, are all topics for this IGF. All these topics will be discussed over the course of these next few days, and I hope at the end of it we end up one step further down the line in solving some of the issues they represent. ICANN, like other Internet organizations, is committed to the multistakeholder and open way of doing business where anyone, anyone, from governments, the technical community, business and civil society can participate freely, either in person or virtually. We are pleased that the IGF is also following this model. ICANN has a participative community of up to 20,000 people around the world involved within its very narrow mandate of technical coordination for the DNS and I.P. addressing. I would like to issue a personal invitation to all people here to join that community, to participate as you wish and desire, and to help with their work and its evolution. Before finishing, I would also like to thank ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Touré, and the UNESCO leadership for their support and assistance in helping to produce a joint workshop with ICANN this week that will review how international cooperation can be used to establish standards for a multilingual, global, and interoperable Internet, the inevitable next step for this extraordinary medium. I wish you all a fruitful week, and I look forward to continuing discussions again next year in Delhi. Thank you

SÉRGIO REZENDE: Thank you, Mr. Twomey. I would like now to call Mr. Naoyuki Akikusa, chairman Fujitsu limited, Chairman of Global Information Infrastructure Commission. And I am going to ask Minister Gilberto Gil to chair the remainder of this session.

NAOYUKI AKIKUSA: Mr. Chairman and all the distinguished participants, thank you for the opportunity to visit Rio de Janeiro. I appreciate the warm welcome from our Brazilian host. I have been working with various business organizations on policy development. Currently, I am serving as the chairman of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, GIIC. The GIIC wishes to provide private sector leaders to host investment in the ICT and Internet capability. The GIIC has actively participated in many meetings of the World Summit on the Information Society, the WSIS, and also the -- in the discussion at the IGF. And holding workshop access tomorrow morning. At GIIC annual meeting in Tokyo next April, and we hope to discuss further the issue of Internet governance and related issues. Today I want to talk about two topics. One is environment and Internet -- and ICT. Second one is corporate management and the Internet. Speaking of the environment and ICT, considering the sustainability of economic development, empowered by the Internet. The Internet is becoming a more important factor. However, we have most -- we have not sufficiently discussed environment impact of the use of such technology. The Internet and ICT can reduce the burden of the environment. For example, distillization and mechanical components greatly improve the accesses. For example, automatic controls, some medical equipment like CTI, and also teleconference reduces physical movement of persons and goods. Emerging management system improves power efficiency in businesses and homes in the public sector. However, the energy consumption in the world ICT use -- sorry, in the world IC uses is not so small. We need to think about more efficient use of our resources. The ICT uses account for 2% of CO2 consumption worldwide.

Some studies show that data centers consume 23% of that amount. Half of -- the air conditioning for cooling consumes half of the power in the datacenter. I would like to show some example. Replacing ten blocks of service by one great server can annually reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent amount of planting 200 trees. The ISP in our company, Fujitsu Group, is now using 25% of its mail servers to combat Spam. And 90% of e-mail coming to Fujitsu are Spam. I think probably the communication carrier use a huge amount of energy and cost for Spam. We are facing many environmental matters to be solved and to discuss in the future. For the (inaudible) development of the global Internet, I think we should pay more attention to accessing this wasting energy and cost. Secondly, I would like to touch upon the corporate management and the Internet. The Internet is a crucial part of the business infrastructure because it circulates everywhere like the air. Companies like Fujitsu heavily depend on the Internet application systems, from R&D to offices to training on education. If Internet doesn't work, it means we cannot continue our business operation. However, many in top management site does not notice this, and think of the Internet as a given infrastructure to utilize. Only a few recognize Internet safety as a critical management issue. To keep secure and stable Internet operation is essential (inaudible) to corporate management. And a company executive should recognize the Internet as one of the most important management issues and coincidentally add something like a subset of worldwide Internet governance. Finally, (inaudible) represented only 30% of all at the IGF in Athens. The important thing for the private sector should be to participate more in the IGF and contribute to its successes. Thank you very much

GILBERTO GIL: Next speaker Ms. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, Minister of Communications of South Africa. Please.

IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, as well as the secretary to the forum. I'd like to thank Brazil in particular for having hosted this, but I will do away with all the other thank you's, but I would like to say a special thank you to the secretary-general of the United Nations for fulfilling the mandate of the World Summit on the Information Society by convening the Internet Governance Forum to enable the multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic and transparent dialogue to take place. And I'd like to thank the secretary-general of the ITU in particular for carrying -- for doing a great deal of work to carry this mandate forward. It is now two years since we decided at the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society that we should establish this multistakeholder forum, this Internet Governance Forum, in order to bring together these representatives that we have here today. Few in the world could have predicted that the Internet would grow in the global phenomena it is today. We must thank the dedicated individuals who have committed so much to its growth and to its management. The benefits of increased efficiency and the services that can be delivered through Internet technology have been closely followed by policy challenges, and many of us face those challenges. And we must all rise to those challenges. One of the such challenges is that one that is the most urgent of challenges facing humankind and it is the eradication of poverty and of underdevelopment. This will remain a critical challenge for some years yet. I therefore appeal to this forum to continue to focus on the collective view that was expressed by the declaration of principles in Tunis or in Geneva to build a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society, enabling the individuals, communities, and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting sustainable development and improving their quality of life. But as we heard today, you can't use it unless you have access to it. And in my country we have a favorite phrase: If you don't use it, you lose it. But we have neither that which we can lose. And it's important to bring that and make sure that we can actually also use it. In east and southern Africa there has already been collaborative effort under the network program of the A.U., the African Union, to build cables, undersea cables, to improve access and to reduce the cost of Internet connectivity as part of what the secretary-general of the ITU spoke about this morning, the connect Africa concept. Another one of the key challenges we face as a people but also as a whole world, and Africa in particular, are the challenges that we must ensure the participation of representative stakeholders on a consistent basis, especially from developing countries and their unconnected people. We therefore need to consider how we can use this tool, the Internet, to address exclusion and underdevelopment. We therefore can ask ourselves what can the IGF do for the billions who do not yet have access, billions who can benefit from the improved way of doing things from accessing government services to e-health, e-education services, etcetera, and a whole range of other services which are offered through the Internet. We need practical solutions to support development. And this development is crucial and crucial now. And as we have endorsed at the WSIS, such things as local content, capacity building, the right of countries to manage their own Internet resources whilst maintaining global coordination are all subject matters of this conference and we hope that as we end the conference we will have moved forward in attending to some of these things. We must take a collective -- make a collective commitment to the next generation Internet and the technologies that will foster the next generation, but we must make sure that the stability and security of the Internet is a global facility and ensuring its requisite legitimacy and governance based on full participation of all stakeholders is maintained. I, therefore, would like to report and echo the call of my own president when he was in Tunis by appealing to everyone that we should ourselves take action to translate the shared vision of an inclusive, development-oriented Information Society into practical reality. We hope that this forum will propel us forward in this mission for benefit of the world, but especially for one of the most marginalized areas of the world, Africa, and I thank you.