Internet activists call out the lack of net neutrality, NSA spying issues in discussion paper

An Internet campaign has noted the absence on the topics of net neutrality, cyberweapons race and the surveillance programs of the US National Security Agency from a discussion paper of a Web governance conference held in Sao Paulo, Brazil this week, PCWorld said in a report. Our Net Mundial, which has initiated the campaign, said that the paper lacks the strength it should have and failed to propose any concrete action.

On Thursday, NETmundial or the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance made a document public, which would act as a guide to the discussions among representatives from over 80 countries all over the world on Internet governance

Internet governance experts Milton Mueller and Ben Wagner had said in a paper that the meeting's goal was to create a set of principles that has real-world applications to prevent issues like the NSA surveillance. The Tunis Agenda of the World Summit on the Information Society had also expressed the need for public policy principles for Web governance that could be applied globally. But Mueller and Wagner are concerned whether the conference could produce something that is not similar to the many policies already established ahead of the meeting.

Last week, vice president Neelie Kroes of the European Commission wrote in a letter to NETmundial her belief that the product from the conference would be substantial. She wrote, "(I continued to strongly believe) that the outcomes of NETmundial must be concrete and actionable, with clear milestones and with a realistic but ambitious timeline."

One area that Kroes is hoping that NETMundial could address is the globalization of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In March, the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration has plans to relinquish its oversight role of ICANN, which appeared to be inspired from the backlash US received for its control over the Internet in light of revelations made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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US National Security Agency, NETmundial, Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance

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