Best Practices for Internet Standards Governance

Eddan Katz, The Information Society Project Yale Law School, and Laura DeNardis, The Information Society Project Yale Law School

6/12/2008
(Original Publish Date: 8/2/2006)

Internet standards are a central apparatus of Internet governance with far reaching economic, political, and technical consequences. Despite the multi-stakeholder importance of standards, the mosaic of organizations involved in Internet standards setting exhibit disparate levels of participatory and informational openness and many do not adhere to principles of due process and consensus. This submission attempts to elevate the importance of Internet standards setting within the Internet governance context and proposes best practices in standards development based on the IGF’s four thematic principles of openness, diversity, security, and access. This submission also proposes the possibility that international governance bodies can help safeguard multi-stakeholder interests by developing a legitimating system of accreditation for standards setting organizations.