Internet governance - Challenges and issues

Internet governance is ‘the development and application by governments, the private sector, and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet’.

This definition, developed by the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), dates back to 2005. It has remained unchanged ever since. The Internet governance regime has continuously evolved since then. It is now a complex system involving a multitude of issues, actors, mechanisms, procedures, and instruments.

According to the definition, there is no single organisation ‘in charge of the Internet’. However, various stakeholders – governments, intergovernmental organisations, the private sector, the technical community, and civil society – share roles and responsibilities in shaping the ‘evolution and use’ of this network.

There are now multiple actors involved in the governance of the internet, in one way or another. These form the so-called internet governance ecosystem. They include various UN bodies, organisations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Internet companies, and NGOs.

More than 10 years after WSIS, the concept of ‘internet governance’ remains open and prone to different interpretations. In the public policy debate, practitioners use other terms, often interchangeably. These include digital policy, digital governance, cyber governance, and Internet policy.

Eight challenges of Internet governance are

1. The pace and changing nature of the internet

The internet today is simply bigger and more diverse than it used to be. Its range of services is far greater and continually growing. It’s been transformed by massive growth in the capacity of networks and devices, mobility, the internet of things and cloud computing. All this continues and accelerates.

Governance mechanisms aren’t always scalable. Ways of governing the internet that worked when it was smaller and less complex won’t be sufficient now it’s larger and more complex.

2. The internet as part of digitalization

The most important technological advances – the most important issues for digital governance emerging now – are not to do with the internet as a communications medium but with other digital developments – in data management, machine learning and artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision-making, robotics and autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, quantum computing.

Internet governance does not provide adequate models for governing those new digital phenomena, which is why there is so much discussion now, for instance, about the ethics of AI.  

3. The concentration of digital power

Networks give powerful advantages to big players that can maximise numbers of users, achieve economies of scope and scale, and leverage data to maximise value to consumers and themselves. 

The result has been the concentration of online power in a few large companies with global reach, that can act effectively unchecked by the majority of governments. These have become the most powerful actors in internet governance today, and their decisions are decidedly not subject to the principles of multistakeholderism.

4. Digital geopolitics

Twenty years ago, the fear in many countries was that the internet was dominated by America. Now China’s as important, and leads in some new digital technologies. Between them, China and the United States have 90 per cent of market capitalisation in the 70 largest digital platforms. Africa and Latin America between them have just 1 per cent.

Achieving digital cooperation – a key aim for the UN Secretary-General – is becoming harder. That really matters in areas like cybersecurity. And governments are much more capable of interfering with each other’s internet environments for political and economic gain, and more inclined to do so.  

5. Shaping the digital future

Shaping the digital future in ways that work with other goals we have rather than letting technology shape the future for us - ‘a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society.’

6. The future of regulation

The internet community – and businesses – have been keen to avoid regulation and sought what they’ve called ‘permissionless innovation’ as distinct from the ‘precautionary principle’ that’s generally applied in other economic sectors.

There is a need of rethinking the relationship between innovation which has been permissionless and the precautionary principle.

7. Multilateralism and multistakeholderism

Multistakeholderism has been an important part of the way the internet’s been governed, from its early days. 

The standard stakeholder groupings are insufficiently disaggregated. There are huge differences between government departments that manage communications and those that use them to deliver public services.

Representation in internet decision-making is skewed towards internet insiders; to the supply side of the internet rather than to the demand side.

Global corporations can throw huge sums at influencing outcomes. Many decisions are made in boardrooms or through negotiations between businesses and governments.

And the internet itself has changed. Many issues require both multilateral and multistakeholder involvement. The UN Secretary-General has stressed that governance should be multisectoral and multidisciplinary as well: bringing economists and social scientists to the table alongside technologists and communications specialists.

8. Participation in decision-making

It is the challenge of equitable and inclusive international governance. Developed countries influence the decisions over developing countries.