INTERNET JAMBOREE MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Incessant speeches, low attendance rates, government leaders crying off: Costing Euro 10 million to the Swiss taxpayer, the world information society summit may have involved a lot of fanfare but it failed to deliver much in the way of results. During the space of three days, some 11,000 delegates from 175 pays, 663 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 111 private companies, and 72 international organisations considered ways of narrowing the North/South digital divide. However, there was not a fat lot at stake, because the decisions had all been taken beforehand during various preparatory meetings. These paved the way for a declaration of principles and an action plan designed to bolster the development of information and communication technologies in the poorest countries. These compromise texts are stuffed with vague or ambiguous pledges and postpone the key issue of funding until a later date. Each speaker was left to spew out a verbiage of talking points about the Internet revolution during the five minutes each country was allowed to take the stand, from the Holy See to Chine. A total 27 hours of...