Zoe Baird and Stefaan Verhulst write on the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, the need for a new model of governance, and the importance and role of civil society. It came and went quietly, but the recently concluded World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva may represent something of a watershed moment in the history of the Internet. For all their differences, governments coalesced around the need to define and develop some form of global governance for the Internet. The Declaration of Principles, agreed upon on the final day of the meeting, refers to the need for management of the Internet.
