Policy Briefs

This policy brief examines the growing pressure to regulate the relationships between online services and telecommunications operators.

While often well-intentioned, policies requiring age checks create risks for people’s privacy, security, and access to an open Internet. 

Discover how community-centered connectivity solutions empower underserved areas. Explore updated licensing options and principles for meaningful connectivity today.

This policy brief explores the key considerations, challenges, and provides guiding principles of multistakeholder Internet governance of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, collaboration, shared responsibility, accountability, consensus-driven and pragmatic evidence-based approaches. 

This document presents a forward-looking and optimistic approach to enhancing Internet resilience through practical and policy-driven solutions.

By actively promoting and formally recognizing open standards in public policy, we can protect the building blocks that enable interoperability, compatibility, and consistency across networks, countries and markets, to ensure the Internet remains a vibrant, interoperable, and open resource for the world.

This policy brief urges policymakers to adopt policies that eliminate shutdowns as a tool and to analyze and weigh the effects of restricting access when addressing policy and security issues, while also advocating for a free and open Internet.

We need deliberate policy and regulatory measures to ensure spectrum availability for community-centered initiatives.

The Internet Society encourages policymakers to prioritize solutions that tackle harmful content at its source, rather than relying on blunt technical measures that may create negative externalities to the open and global nature of the Internet.