Civil Society Democracy Project (CivSoc of CPSR)
CivSoc is a semi-autonomous project of CPSR that works on ICANN issues and Internet governance.  CivSoc is CPSR's participant in the Internet Democracy Project and the Civil Society Internet Forum.  CivSoc also publishes the Cyber-Federalist newsletter.  Recent activities include:

• Cyber-Federalist newsletter archives.
• North American Candidates Forum at Harvard Law School (Cambridge, MA, October, 2000)
• Analysts Panel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, October, 2000)
• Publication of the Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections (July 2000)
• Petition to the ICANN Board of Directors (July 2000)
• Launch of the Civil Society Internet Forum (July 2000)
• Yokohama Forum at the ICANN Board Meeting (Yokohama, Japan, July, 2000)
• Seoul ICANN Workshop (July 2000).
• Launch of the Internet Democracy Project (June 2000)
• Presentation at the American Cultural Center of Bulgaria (Sofia, May 2000).  (Press coverage.)
• TIES Conference on Internet and Civil Society (Paris, April 2000).See also Panel 3 description.
• Conference Proceedings: Governing the Commons: The Future of Global Internet Administration.  (Alexandria, VA, September,1999).
• "Internet By-Laws: An Analysis and Critique of Three Proposals," September 1998.
• ICANN panel at The New School (New York, September 1998)

Civil Society Internet Forum (CSIF)
CSIF is a global framework in which individuals and organizations representing civil society can interact and cooperate in issues of Internet governance.  CSIF publishes the Civil Society Statement on ICANN Elections.
 
CPSR's 2002 Norbert Wiener Award to Karl Auerbach - for pioneering democratic Internet governance.

Other CPSR Activities in Internet Governance

• CPSR worked with Germany's Comlink in its campaign ICANN Cannot - We Can to register the names of Internet users who could not register to vote on the ICANN web site due to technical problems
• Domain Name Resolutions: CPSR Proposals for the new Corporation. June 30, 1998
• CPSR Comments on "Green Paper". Comments before the NTIA, March, 1998.
• Domain Names and Internet Governance, by Glenn Manishin, CPSR Newsletter, February, 1998
• CPSR Comments on DNS Reform. Comments before the NTIA, August, 1997

Speaking Engagements by Working Group Members

• Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (April, 2000)

• See CivSoc of CPSR (above)

• Governance Panel at TIES Conference on Internet and Civil Society (Paris, April 2000).See the panel description and report.
• Conference: Governing the Commons: The Future of Global Internet Administration. Alexandria, VA, September 24-25, 1999.

• Governance Panel at TIES Conference on Internet and Civil Society (Paris, April 2000).See the panel description and report.

• Conference: Governing the Commons: The Future of Global Internet Administration. Alexandria, VA, September 24-25, 1999.

Readings

• Milton Mueller:  ICANN and Internet Governance: Sorting Through the Debris of 'Self Regulation'
• Hans Klein: Internet By-Laws: An Analysis and Critique of Three Proposals, September 1998.
• Marc Holitscher: The Reform of the Domain Name System and the Role of Civil Society, presentation  at the 3rd Workshop of the Transatlantic Information Exchange Service (TIES), Paris, 6-7 April 2000
• Small Business Association  A letter from SBA to ICANN asking for ICANN to issue a formal policy statement on such matters as notice and comment, openness, and transparency. A good summary of some of the problems of the current organization.

Other Resources

• Cyber-rights page on DNS policy.
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)  The organization that was created by DoC amidst great controversy. "(ICANN) is the new non-profit corporation that was formed to take over responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions now performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities. "
• ICANN Watch  A site serving "as a central point of reference about what ICANN is and is not doing."
• International Forum on the White Paper  An ad hoc international group that formed shortly after the U.S. Department of Commerce issued its White Paper on Internet Names. Four meetings were held in North America, Europe, Asia and South America which produced an impressive proposal for a governance structure for domain names. The proposal was not implemented.
• Department of Commerce  The Domain Names page of the DoC contains official documents relating to the creation of ICANN as well as the archive of comments received.

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