Who governs the Internet? If asked this question, different people will answer very differently, shaped by their previous experiences, background, objectives and history in general.

Recently I started on an six month eLearning online course by the Internet Society titled “Shaping the Internet – History and Futures”. As the NGL programme web-page says: “The course curriculum covers the essential topics required for effective interactions and relationships within the Internet ecosystem, as well as key concepts and emerging issues in Internet governance”.

I’m absolutely thrilled to be on this and have a clear goal of delivering my absolutely best with participating in discussions, classes, doing my assigned activities and being available to my fellow course participants!

..back to the question asked. A Google-search will return what I’d say is a slim selection of responses. A quick read-through of some of the hits give a hint to the complexity of the issue. Some of them gives you pointers to the UN, the ITU, the Internet Society (ISOC) and of course, the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003/2005.
If you work in the private part of the ICT sector in a western country in Europe and you speak English as your primary or second language, you are probably going to find that the answers Google will return with, matches your views in many ways. But what if you work with the governmental ICT of an emerging economy in another part of the world, with a different language and a different set of rules in daily life? Will your answer be different?

With the NGL programme in my head and the Internet governance as an very interesting subject, I’m giving this a great deal of thought and will probably write more on this subject in the weeks ahead.

Now, where did I put my book of Roman warfare?