Resumen
The author shares his viewpoint on the need to create a statement of universal principles for governing the Internet. In the absence of any governing authority, central ownership, or management, how to begin to forge a consensus about the way the Internet should be administered in the long run is discussed here. The first step in Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility's campaign for Internet governance, has been the drafting of what will prove to be a foundational document, a statement of principles for the Internet era. The Internet appears to be chaotic and unstructured, it already had in place the ideal mechanisms for drafting, debating, publishing, and agreeing upon such a document. Within the chaos that is the Internet, standards have been made by an extremely open process in which draft documents are published, comments are solicited from anyone in the world, and revisions are made until consensus is reached. Some of the principles may seem at first reading to be either vague or obvious. They appear obvious to those who have already thought about Internet issues. They appear "vague" because they are intended to guide and inform specific situations and problems long into the future.