E-participation in the EuroDIG

The current aim of this research project is to implement the small-scale pilot described in this research proposal.

engage the ongoing process and remote participants

Status: ongoing

• inquiry sent to EuroDIG organizers about RP organizers
  • response was that remote participation organizers are, and have been, Bernard Sadaka and Marilia Maciel
• contacting Bernard and Marilia to get more info
  • met with Marilia at FGV-RJ, talked about RP and EuroDIG, lead to much improved data section
  • Bernard won't answer my e-mails
• Pri says Nikola from Diplo may be a good contact

seek and publicly organize documentation and data on remote participation in the EuroDIG

Status: ongoing

• mapped public online history of remote participation in the EuroDIG
• TODO get information during interviews

interviews EuroDIG oragnizers and participants of remote hubs from previous EuroDIGs, calling for input on the documentation organized

Status: ongoing

• TODO contact past hubs and former remote participants
• TODO contact whoever participated remotely in this year's preparatory meeting
• TODO write down questionnaire, suggestions appreciated

analyze and summarize the findings, producing a report

Status: missing dependencies

• For remote participants
• For hub organizers

Marilia tells me remote participation this year has been enhanced to a more widespread process which includes the planning of EuroDIG:

1. Online evaluation survey of last year's remote participation
2. Online survey on the priority of areas and topics
3. Remote participation during first planning meeting announced here
4. Call for issues, workshop proposals
5. Draft agenda composed on top of collected input
6. Online comment system for agenda draft
7. Remote participation during second planning meeting

Remote participation followed the IGF hub model, info available at:

• Hub list and estimates, 12 hubs and no info for Colombia-Bogota
• 2010 RP EuroDIG report, aggregated statistics from replies to a questionnaire sent to hub organizers

Introduced remote moderators and training for the remote participation tool.

Transcripts are available for download.

Sessions of uncertain remote participation: WS7 (at least no transcript available), WrapUp (though it reports some numbers on RP).

Below are feature numbers and relevant excerpts extracted from the transcripts. Keep in mind that the transcripts themselves are not standardized or precise.

Session: National debates

• 3 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 1 intervention from REMOTE

>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Anders. And I'll -- we just received a question from the remote. We will not answer it now but we will answer it later, from the remote hub in Strasbourg. They said it's the first time they heard about the French IGF. We will not answer it now, we will answer it later, and they want to know how they can join. But this is just an example of how it can create outreach to your IGFs. We hope that is the case. Thank you, Anders.

• 1 pre-recorded video from REMOTE

We thank you for this opportunity. As a part of the Internet community, we share the importance of the formal development of the information society with the Internet community. It's essential. But we are also worried about the necessity of the international governing and the basis for the economic, social and scientific projects. So we support the right of users to privacy. But we have to remember about such problems as children, pornography spreading, or terrorist group activity in the Internet. That's why we are interested in the mutual cooperation and we will be so glad to present our ideas and projects.

Session: Opening session

• 3 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 3 interventions from REMOTE

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: How do you see the development of Internet Governance in east and west Europe attending to the technical differences between east and west Europe. So --

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: The online journalism in Europe, what do you think about this development?

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: Can we regulate the copyright on Internet and how?

Session: Plenary 1

• 17 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Plenary 2

• 2 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Plenary 3

• between 10 and 17 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 3 interventions from REMOTE

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: So we have actually a number of questions coming from people in Europe, but also Georgia and all the way from Brazil as well. And the questions are mainly about the user viewpoint. There's a lot of questions that come in that say how do we ensure that we have principles in place that guarantee net neutrality, depending on how exactly you call that notion, how you define it, but are guaranteed from a user viewpoint?

There are a lot of people saying we are hearing this from a telecoms perspective, not a user perspective, so how do we ensure we really have the user in mind when we apply those principles?

And related to that, a lot of questions from both within Europe and outside Europe are do we actually need regulation to guarantee those principles and to enforce them? And if so, how should it happen? And I think it's interesting to see from Europeans, who have just heard from the Commission, there doesn't seem to be an understanding that European regulations are, as they stand, enough to protect net neutrality. So if you could comment on that, then we'll do a quick summary of where we're at before we move on.

>> Okay. Now it's working. Thank you. I have missed the first part of this session, so I don't know whether this has already been covered, but listening to what you have said about the different layers of where net neutrality is an issue or should be an issue, you have the content layer, then you have the service providers and the bandwidth layer, and there's another layer, I don't know whether you discussed this, I just want to raise this issue, is the hardware layer, actually.

If you take the example of I want to buy an iPhone, and maybe in my country there's only one telecom provider who has contracts to sell iPhones, but this telecom provider does not allow me to use Skype or other services, do you think this is also an issue of network neutrality, or is this rather something that is competition law and vertical separation? What do you think about the hardware component that is -- all software and hardware.

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: Okay. Here we go. From Venezuela, hello, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. Thanking the speaker who brought net neutrality to the question of principles, I would like to reiterate that as users, we know that we must pay for our services, that there must be efficient management to adjust critical agency and bandwidth use. But we also need to know are you filtering, are you slowing, are you carrying on behind-the-curtain violation of neutrality in the name of network management? We need to have openness and transparency of the policies you use to manage that bandwidth. Thank you.

• 1 pre-recorded video from REMOTE

(too long, from Ivan Brincat from European Commission about incoming public consultation)

Session: Plenary 4

• 3 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Plenary 5

• 6 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 1 intervention from REMOTE

>> JOAO BARROS: All right. I'm authorized to say that remote participants express support for Wolfgang's points that the RP in EuroDIG has shown this positive side and this progress towards inclusion that is happening in the MS processes. If you know the acronyms, you will know what this is about.

Session: Workshop 1

• 8 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Workshop 2

• over 12 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 1 intervention from REMOTE

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: Yes, we have one from a participant named Alfred. Have there been reports that the trademark issue within the IDN TLD is not as critical with TLD? Do the speakers think this is the case and can we explain why. This was for the trademark.

Session: Workshop 3

• an uncertain number of interventions from AUDIENCE
• 1 intervention from REMOTE

>> Questions from the Armenian hub. The first one is concerning copyright, which is in some cases protecting copyright means ensuring that the state has a monopoly over content and Internet access. And what tools are in place it in order to ensure that there isn't a monopoly but, nevertheless, there is copyright protection?

And the second one is concerning business models, and the Internet facilitates a new business model that can be called wide area telecommuting, which means that an individual lives in a country but works for a company that is registered in another country. And so that poses a lot of financial and legal problems. And how can the participants of this conference -- do they have any experiences in that regard, and how can they ensure that there's active debate on this issue?

Session: Workshop 4

• 10 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Workshop 5

• 19 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE
• 1 pre-recorded message from REMOTE

>> REMOTE PARTICIPANT: Not really from a remote participation because there are not that many who have joined yet. Have we received the report from our colleagues in Moldavia who had their workshop yesterday and the day before on this topic? And they sent us a number of questions or comments and outcomes of their workshop. And I just wanted to give you one interesting comment that was made, a question or comment because it comes from a different part of Europe. They have very specific concerns there. And the one big concern was that in apparently Moldavia a lot of parents have to work abroad. So the children are termed "very little supervision". I wanted to say that this is a big problem for them because they believe since the parents can't be there with them a lot but as mentioned before they are afraid that they do not get enough protection and they wonder what can be done there. It is a bigger question. I think it goes beyond just the Internet as fear now. But I think it was quite an interesting impression from that part of Europe.

Session: Workshop 6

• 6 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Session: Workshop 7

• unknown interventions from AUDIENCE
• unknown interventions from REMOTE

Session: Wrapup

• 14 interventions from AUDIENCE
• 0 interventions from REMOTE

Remote participation was very simplistic, with streaming of sessions. Acknowledged in:

• Document Messages from Geneva
• Infoletter 3
• Infoletter 4, mentions need of Realplayer software

Other than that, no info online

No remote participation.

See E-participation in the EuroDIG/Report