The European Coordinating Council of the Internet Society, ISOC-ECC, is presently based on membership of 22 Chapters. Each member Chapter is a member of the global ISOC in its own right. ISOC Chapters tend to comprise and represent ISOC's individual membership, whereas globally ISOC also comprises corporate membership. The first meetings of ISOC-ECC were in 2001. It was formally founded in November 2002 as a not-for-profit association registered in Barcelona, Spain. Since then, ISOC-ECC has evolved into an active, cooperative organisation, among like-minded ISOC Chapters in Europe 1. The professional time made available by individual members is on a voluntary basis.
ISOC-ECC works in areas specific to European cooperation, without prejudice to the national and regional activities of individual Chapters, and without duplicating the role of ISOC as a whole. ISOC-ECC maintains close liaison with the global ISOC through our Member Chapters, members of the ISOC Board of Trustees and ISOC Staff.
ISOC in Europe experiences specific characteristics of the European environement: ● highly qualified membership with diverse professional and personal capacities and interests. ● multiple languages and several scripts. ● many ccTLDs, which are often associated with the national ISOC Chapters. ● shared policy interests in an increasingly uniform legal environment, through EU harmonisation. ● proximity to the European Union Institutions, which increasingly influence the policy initiatives of EU governments, funding of ICT R&D, and international cooperation. ● The presence of the highly successful ccTLD, .EU, operated by the Eurid Registry, established jointly by the ccTLDs in Italy, Belgium and Sweden. ISOC-ECC holds a seat on the board of Eurid. ● ISOC Chapters participate actively in the ICANN structures for the represenation of user interests on the Internet. The global At-Large community comprises several regional At-Large organisations, including the European Regional At-Large Organisation, EURALO. Nine of the 25 certified At Large Structures in EURALO are ISOC Chapters, members of ISOC-ECC. ISOC-ECC draws on these characteristics and adapts its work programme accordingly. Since resources are limited, especially the voluntary time of the membership, ISOC-ECC needs to focus on a few well defined themes and priorities. Thus, ISOC-ECC will in the coming months focus on a few leading topics, including: ● responding to the European Parliament's initiative for an European Internet Governance Forum, looking towards the United Nations' IGF. ● Coordinating policy input from ISOC-ECC Chapters to the forthcoming IGFs. ● Coordinating Chapters' comments to public policy issues such as the Internet aspects of EU telecommunications regulatory changes, and regulation of Intellectual Property Rights. ● Eventually, coordinating joint submissions by member Chapters to EU policy research and funding programmes. These activities reflect the potentially broad range of policy interests of ISOC members. In addition to the Internet naming and addressing system (DNS), which is primarily the responsibility of ICANN, ALAC and EURALO, ISOC Chapters are concerned with Internet stability and security, technical standardisation (IETF), privacy and data protection, the future development of the Internet, the IPv4/IPv6 transition, intellectual property rights, multilingualism and educational and cultural aspects of the Internet.
Thus, depending on current priorities and resources, ISOC-ECC and its member Chapters may manifest their interest in any of these aspects of Internet policy, including related national and European Union legislation affecting the interests and position of individual users of the Internet. ______________ Enquires and further information: <
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