Pritzker Applauds Launch of NETmundial Initiative
Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker welcomed the launch of the NETmundial Initiative, in a statement Thursday. The initiative is being led by ICANN, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br), said the initiative’s website. The initiative…
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is designed to be a “self-organizing framework” that lets Internet governance stakeholders build on the work earlier this year of the NETmundial conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil (see 1404240071), said Richard Samans, World Economic Forum managing director, on a conference call Thursday. Pritzker said she hoped the initiative would be “successful in advancing multistakeholder Internet governance that is open, transparent and allows for the participation of all interested parties.” Samans, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade and Virgilio Almeida, Brazilian secretary for information and technology policy, are heading the initiative’s transitional committee, which will select its Coordination Council, said the website. That council will be made up of 25 members, including one member from the academic community; two civil society members; three government members; and four private sectors members. ICANN, WEF and ICG.br will occupy three of the five permanent seats on the council. Samans said the council’s first meeting is expected in late January, at which point the transitional committee will be disbanded. Internet governance officials announced their intent to launch the initiative at the WEF in August (see 1408290071). The Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the initiative in September, calling it a “pre-cooked, big business initiative” (see 1409020079).