Recently there have been various stories in international media about Ethiopia shutting down VOIP Services including Skype, Google Talk etc. The international press has been awash with stories and scenarios about how this development in Ethiopia will play out. Which brings me to my pet subject of Internet Governance and Freedom from an African Perspective.
A lot has been said and bandied around about this subject. Most of it coached in acronyms and Non-Governmental Organization speak of interventions and log-frames.

So what is Internet Governance & Freedom from a business and layman’s perspective? And why should you care about it? To explain this exhaustively we must go to the beginning. To the rise of the Internet itself as a mass media tool of choice. Most of us may not appreciate this but the fact is that without Government and Private Sector Partnership the Internet as we know it today will not exist.

According to Wikipedia Internet Governance is the development and application of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.

We will now examine how the Internet was and is currently governed, some of the controversies that occurred along the way, and the ongoing debates about how the Internet should or should not be governed in the future. Continue reading →