While some government leaders came to argue a case for moving the control of the Domain Name System (DNS) from the U.S. and ICANN to an international body of some description, that clearly was not about to happen any time soon.
Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and a senior advisor to the U.S. delegation to WSIS, said. "The desire to internationalize or insert government into the management of the DNS is ill-advised because it would slow the wonderful pace of innovation that we are enjoying today."
Gallagher added that the political focus on the DNS, which he described as "the phone book of the Internet," a distraction from the real issues.
"The purpose of the World Summit and the true focus of where our energies should be applied are to extend the promise of the Internet to the developing world, and the promise that it holds for education and health care and productivity for the worker," Gallagher said.
That focus was echoed by many other government and corporate leaders kicking off the summit.
"This summit must be a summit of solutions," said Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, in his opening remarks, emphasizing that what mattered was innovation and implementation as well as freedom of information if the information society was not to stall. He suggested that the DNS was a technical issue best left to technical people and added, "The U.N. does not want to take over or control the Internet."
He emphasized that today reaping the benefits of an information society are often more political than financial. The rapid spread of wireless and other technologies are now making it possible for developing counties to move forward rapidly.
Craig Barrett, chairman of the board, Intel Corporation, speaking on behalf of business at the summit's opening session, argued that the accident of geographical location was no longer a controlling destiny for the peoples of any nation. The PC and the Internet has leveled the playing field so today, every child on the face of the earth could have the potential to succeed, especially if poor economies focused on access to technology rather than owning technology.
However, Barrett made the point that access alone was not enough. If all it took was access to excel, the U.S. would lead rather than trail at the bottom ranks of academic performance in math and sciences. "What will succeed is access to technology and quality education," Barrett added
Samuel Schmid, President of Switzerland, added, "I hope this summit doesn't just focus on technology, but also on content." He too argued that freedom of expression and freedom of information were vital to continuing growth. And he suggested that one of the goals had to be the building of an infrastructure for developing countries.
That is one message that will be heard over and over again as the summit proceeds.
