The global internet challenge

In the age of AI, internet governance will require agreement among governments and corporations that are providers or major users of the service

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Over the past few decades, the most important technological advance has been in the development of new information technology. In 1990, the number of internet users was barely 3 million, mostly in the United States (US). Since then the use of the internet has expanded phenomenally, reaching around 5.5 billion users today. This includes 63 per cent of the population in developing countries and 93 per cent in developed countries. The development of mobile communication and mobile phones has been a major factor in this acceleration. It is clearly the fastest and largest technology advance that the world has experienced in recent years.

At the end of the 20th century, when the use of the internet had become quite widespread and increasingly commercially oriented, many governments wanted a greater say in decisions related to standard setting, the designation of institutions for allocation rights, and other aspects of internet governance.

This led to the convening of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which met twice in 2003 and 2005 and called for the establishment of an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) within the United Nations (UN). The IGF has since met annually over the past 20 years.

In most development issues handled in the UN, the effective locus of control is at the national level, even for internationally linked activities like telecommunication. The internet is quite different. It is a global facility, and even those elements of the internet that have a national identity are global in character.

Coordination of national policies alone is, therefore, not an adequate answer. The internet is very much a product of cross-border partnerships and, as such, its management is not national management requiring global coordination but global management requiring national influence.