“Not long ago we witnessed a turning point when the Internet crossed the 1-billion-user threshold. That accomplishment is more than a testament to the technological savvy and foresight of the people who built the Internet; it is proof that the model of openness and collaboration that has come to define the Internet works. The Internet we enjoy today happened not because someone or some entity decided it; it happened because the engineers, the entrepreneurs, and the organizations at the grass roots were free to imagine and create it.
Preparing for the next billion users poses considerable technological, economic, and social challenges. That is why in 2008 the Internet Society made considerable efforts to promote IPv6 as the only viable option for dealing with the depletion of the IPv4 address pool. With IPv6, the Internet’s growth, stability, and openness can continue unimpeded. The Internet Society continued to build on the major initiatives that had been launched in the previous year—especially those that will help ensure that social networking sites and personal data-management tools, such as online banking, do not put a user’s privacy or identity at risk.
We further strengthened the Internet Society as a global organization by providing still more support for Chapters and by setting up a new Regional Bureau representing Latin America and the Caribbean. The Internet Society’s support for the Internet Engineering Task Force remained as strong as ever, and our engaging of policy makers around the world continued unabated. We have retained and attracted extraordinary talent and we are financially sound. Please take a moment to read more about those accomplishments on the following pages.”
— Daniel Karrenberg, Chair, Board of Trustees