INTA Engages with World Summit on the Information Society

INTA’s advocacy for brand owners extends to United Nations (UN) initiatives, including the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Earlier this year, governments, academics, nonprofit organizations, and both large and small businesses from around the world participated in the WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event 2024, co-organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and co-hosted in Geneva, Switzerland, by ITU and the Swiss Confederation.

WSIS was formed in 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia, with a primary objective to “build a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented information society.” WSIS+20 refers to the review process currently being undertaken to examine the implementation and overall outcomes of WSIS in light of its 20th anniversary coming up next year. The High-Level Event was one of a series of activities and events in the review process.

4,000 multi-stakeholder participants, including governments, the private sector, academia, and civil society, from 160 countries, took part in the five-day event, with 3,000 persons on site and 1,000 participating remotely. There were 200 sessions, including high-level plenary sessions, interactive sessions, and a ministerial roundtable with more than 100 speakers and experts who shared their insights on various aspects of the digital landscape.

INTA’s presence was felt from day one as INTA’s Senior Director, Internet Policy, Lori Schulman (USA) was on site as a High-Level Track Facilitator for the session entitled Leaders TalkX 3: Gateway to Knowledge: Empowering Global Access Through Digital. The high-level, diverse panel discussed and highlighted issues related to physical infrastructure, language and social barriers, the quality of data, and the need for greater equality in Internet access. Ms. Schulman noted that the message is positive despite the continuing challenges, as much progress has been made in providing gateways to knowledge at the local and global level.

INTA President Dana Northcott (Amazon.com Inc., USA) participated in the session Leaders TalkX: Local Voices, Global Echoes: Preserving Human Legacy, Linguistic Identity, and Local Content in a Digital World. She explained that INTA believes the key to the continued development of open, sustainable, and inclusive digital spaces is the ongoing commitment to meaningful multi-stakeholder involvement at the local, national, and supra-national levels. This includes transparent and open collaboration with all stakeholders to create balanced policies that improve everyday lives, especially for non-English speaking and writing communities that have often been left behind.

Ms. Northcott noted that the Association’s mission is complementary to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and specifically addressed SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. She noted that INTA strongly supported efforts within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to enhance the availability of domain names in local languages, not just English and the languages of wealthy nations. She concluded her intervention by stating that the Association itself is an important forum for the exchange of perspectives from around the world and recognizes that it is critical to continuously monitor and address language issues to ensure maximum access of local voices and content to the Internet.

INTA will continue to follow the WSIS as its 20-year review progresses. There will be opportunities for INTA to independently contribute to key discussions and outcome documents that will help determine what the next decade of the Internet might look like. Further, INTA will have input in the WSIS+20 process through its activities at ICANN and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). IGF is the policy arm that has developed through the WSIS process. There are discussions at the highest levels of the UN to determine how WSIS and IGF may work together for more concrete policy outcomes. INTA participates in all three Internet governance venues (ICANN, WSIS, and IGF) to ensure that the voices of brand owners continue to be heard.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest.

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