Internet governance and the emergence of global civil society

The Internet has created a new cost-implosive economic for long distance interaction and assisted in the creation of global organizations. A guiding vision for Internet governance is proposed, based in that economic, and the resultant emerging global civil society. New organizations and global civil society will challenge the existing rule of law, traditions, and culture far more than the Internet does today. The experience of social activists in Central Europe during the 1980s in acting to bring a civil society into existence, shows the practical application of this model. Using these concepts as a guide, participants in Internet governance should recognize this trend, discover the new opportunities it presents, and encourage the further creation of a worldwide Internet constituency of technical and policy experts to reinforce, exploit, and further develop it. New technical developments should continue to follow the "deployment-propagation" model, and thus to test technical validity through real-world use. The Internet process and its participant groups should "de-Americanize" in order to innovate more and to ensure adoption by the world at large. Failure to do so could cause the Internet to lose its fundamental character, followed by the loss of its tremendous promise of economic, social, and technical progress.