The Internet is the major medium for communication in our days. Without the Internet most modern life and business would not work. The Internet was developed by people who think along technical lines and believe in standards and conventions that are developed in several groups with different grades of openness and public documentation. The Internet is run and maintained by companies with technically minded people using a lot of conventions and mutual agreements without any real central power or institution which could enforce rules.

That is true for the basic Internet but on top of the basic network of networks a whole range of services and products is existing – search engines, social media platforms, video streaming any many more. They are run by companies which are mostly driven by commercial and financial interests. These interests are often quite different from the rules used in the Internet based on mutual agreement and conventions agreed upon in open discussions with final – often raw – consensus between all interested parties.

To make things even more complicated, a whole industry of unlawful groups are using the Internet and the layers on top of it to run their special businesses ranging from blackmailing, offering of weapons, drugs and other forbidden goods and services up to stealing and selling of private data.

We also see governments interfere with the Internet often under the premises of protecting their people. But any attempt to protect people by blocking the Internet or spying on people will in the end fall back on the people who should be protected. There is no technique – and there never will be one – which only breaks the encryption of bad people. Everything which is developed for good intention can also be misused with bad intention by other people.

Taking all of this into account the question is: can the Internet be made a better Internet by good or at least better governance of the Internet?

In the technical Internet world approaches which invite and include all interested parties like the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) seem to give better results than local or closed efforts for creating technical standards. If we try to use those principles also in the area of governance of the Internet we would build and create principles and rules for governance and control of the Internet acting along the same lines. Starting with an open and inclusive discussion of the problems and areas of work a set of principles could be identified and refined over time using open discussions. During this development process all interested parties should be invited and be involved. There should be no special role for neither governments nor civil society, all should be part of the development and discussion cycles. It might be very hard to fit the diverging interests of privacy and anonymity versus trust and interest to identify bad users of the system. There will be a need for compromises and only a rough consensus might be reachable without fulfilling everybody’s wishes in full extent.

If there is consensus about the governance rules between all involved parties as a next step at least the vast majority of all players must signal acceptance of the basic set and adhere to them. When reaching this goal a large part of the problem is solved. In addition to the non-binding acceptance some of the rules and best practices could be used to define local laws, international law and treaties. Only rules which are widely accepted should be enforced globally. Development of rules for the Internet as a global medium must be done globally even if laws might only be defined and enforced locally.

One step on this path was the discussion of governance principles and problems at the IGF (Internet Governance Forum). After several years of open, fruitful and multi-sided discussions the next step of development should be taken. A more result-oriented platform delivering at least some basic deliverables should be initiated. This might be an evolution of the IGF or a new follow-on kind of platform. The great achievements of the IGF by including all parties and the openness of discussions with all on equal setting must be kept as crucial for success and acceptance. An even more inviting and more encompassing structure might help that parties which were not yet used so much to this kind of development would also find their place in the discussion and the acceptance of the results. This work should be based on recommendations like the report from the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation from June 2019, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and respect the principle from the framework of the Human Rights Council.

The condition for success is the openness and inclusiveness of the overall process. Only if all parties ranging from end users and civil societies to big companies, from governments to non-governmental-organizations are involved in the development process results which change the global acceptance and global commitment can be expected.