Introduction: Perceptions of Governance -- Perceptions of Information Society -- Regulatory Approaches -- Historical Developments: From McBride to WSIS -- From ICANN to WSIS -- Organizational Framework in Internet Governance: Overview -- Policy and Technology Organizations -- Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- World Summits of the Information Society and Internet Governance Forum -- European Dialogue on Internet Governance -- Philosophical and Sociological Environment: Philosophical Concepts of a Social Contract for the internet Community -- Multi-Stakeholderism in Internet Governance -- Discussion Topics of Internet Governance: Introduction -- Legitimacy -- Transparency -- Accountability -- Partipation -- Regulatory Issues: Introduction -- Critical Resources and Access -- Protection of Civil Liberties and Humanization of Internet Governance -- Security: Assuring Safety, Trust, and Reliability -- Bridging the Digital Divide -- Concluding Obervations.

The recent intensive discussions about the contents of Internet governance addressed manifold aspects of a possible regulatory regime. Since an international treaty structure is missing and self-regulation as a normative model does not suffice in all respects, new architectural and constitutional theories need to be developed. Notwithstanding the available literature on the Internet Governance Forum, this thorough and systematic study is shedding light on the main topics of Internet governance (such as legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and participation) and on the key regulatory issues (for example critical Internet resources, access, protection of civil liberties/human rights, realization of security, safety and privacy standards, as well as the overcoming of the digital divide) from a legal perspective.