Internet Governance

Internet governance can be defined as the evolving policies and mechanisms under which the Internet community’s many stakeholders make decisions about the development and use of the Internet. Internet governance covers a wide range of issues, from day-to-day technical and operational workings of the Internet to public policy issues such as combating crime on the Internet. Discussions occur in many forums and technical and operational Internet governance discussions have long been discussed in multi-stakeholder bodies developed for these purposes.

The NRO takes an active role in many of these discussions, engaging with forums and organizations such as:

  • Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
  • Internet Society (ISOC)
  • International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
  • Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
  • Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) to the OECD
  • World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
  • World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT)
  • Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs)
  • Many regional organizations

All stakeholders are encouraged to communicate with their Regional Internet Registry (RIR) to learn more about opportunities to become engaged in Internet governance dialogue.
 

Cooperation and Engagement 

Since the early stages of the Internet, the NRO and each individual RIR have actively cooperated with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure the future growth and continued stability of the Internet. The NRO is committed to continuing this cooperation, and engages with many governments and related global institutions with an interest in the development of the Internet.

NRO efforts in the area of Internet governance are focused on a number of goals:

  • Make sure the interests of the Internet community are represented in key forums
  • Educate governments and international organizations on the RIR structure and bottom-up community driven number resource management model
  • Work within various organizations to remove barriers that result in misunderstanding
  • Facilitate opportunities to exchange meaningful insight that will impact Internet number resource distribution and management not only today, but in the future as well

 

More information

Find out about Internet governance activities at:

Last modified on 27/06/2018