First phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is taking place in Geneva with the Government of Switzerland as the host from 10 to 12 December 2003.

The second phase will take place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005. It will address the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action.

The unique naming system on the internet that gives each domain a particular address is currently administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a legacy of the evolution of the internet in the U.S. ICANN is a U.S.-based non-profit organisation. Ever since the birth of ICANN in 1998, the private company that oversees 'name space', issues are becoming less technical and more political.

Domain names with country suffixes like ".in" for India are under the administration of national registers but the more valuable generic suffixes like ".org" and ".com" are under the control of ICANN.

ICANN has been licensed by the U.S. Government to oversee management of names and addresses on the Internet. Representatives from the North dominate ICANN’s board and its control over Internet governance has come under criticism on many fronts.

The WSIS has come a long way since the adoption of its first Resolution A/RES/56/183, on 21 December 2001 and the second Resolution of December 2002 by the U.N. General Assembly to the Resolution 1207 on ITU Preparatory Activity for WSIS adopted at the ITU Council, Geneva 2003. This resolution instructs the Secretary General and the Directors of the Bureaux to perform a “stock-taking exercise” and prepare an analysis paper, to show how ITU’s current work programme contributes to the fulfillment of the objectives outlined in the WSIS draft action plan.

The Draft Declaration of Principles of WSIS “Building the Information Society: a global challenge in the new Millennium” as finalised on 14 November 2003. One can read it  http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc3/td/030915/S03-WSISPC3-030915-TD-GEN-0006!R1!MSW-E.doc

During preparations for the WSIS one of the issues that emerged is Internet has ceased to be a U.S. monopoly, ICANN can no longer be the controlling agency. It should be handed over to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) of the U.N. The issue in question is yet another manifestation of North-South divide.