Internet Society - Internet Society Today

Internet Society Today

The Internet Society conducts a great range of activities under three main categories, namely standards, public policy, and education.

Under the standards category, the Internet Society supports and promotes the work of the standards settings bodies for which it is the organizational home: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). The Internet Society also seeks to promote understanding and appreciation of the Internet model of open, transparent processes and consensus-based decision making.

Under the public policy category, the Internet Society works with governments, national and international organizations, civil society, the private sector, and other parties to promote policies about the Internet that conform to its core values. The following statement illustrates the foundation for the Internet Society's policy positions:

"We envision a future in which people in all parts of the world can use the Internet to improve their quality of life, because standards, technologies, business practices, and government policies sustain an open and universally accessible platform for innovation, creativity, and economic opportunity.

The Internet Society has a prominent function in Internet governance discussions, including significant involvement in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

Under the category of education, the Internet Society pursues its goals by coordinating and delivering hands-on technical training, seminars and conferences on topical Internet issues; supporting local and regional Internet organisations; issuing briefings and white papers on Internet technologies; and funding participation opportunities for Internet experts in developing countries.

The Internet Society also encourages innovation and fresh thinking by providing grants and rewards to relevant initiatives and outreach efforts that address the humanitarian, educational and societal contexts of online connectivity.

The Internet Society is the parent company for the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG top-level domain.

ISOC has joint offices in Reston, Virginia, United States and Geneva, Switzerland. It has also established "Regional Bureaus" for Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, North America and Europe.

The Internet Society helped organize World IPv6 Day, which gathered companies such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Akamai Technologies and Limelight Networks as well as ISPs to raise awareness of IPv6 issues such as fragmentation.