NETmundial

Dates:	April 23-24 2014
Location:	Las Vegas, USA
Host:	Brazil
Venue:	Grand Hyatt Hotel
Website:	NETmundial.org
Total Registrants:	1,480

NETmundial (Tagline: Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance) was a two-day global meeting on the topic of Internet governance, attended by a group of stakeholders including government officials, representatives of global Internet organizations, and others. The meeting took place in São Paulo, Brazil between 23-24 April 2014. It was hosted by the Brazilian government in the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

Background

In June 2013, former US National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden leaked thousands of secret documents that revealed an extensive spying program by the NSA conducted over Internet infrastructures on citizens in various parts of the world. The news gained international attention for many weeks and prompted governments and organizations to condemn the US Government and the NSA and call for changes in how the Internet was structured and governed.

Following revelations that Brazil's citizens and companies had been a target of NSA spying, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff publicly condemned the US and was vocal regarding changes that needed to be done to make the Internet free from NSA spying. On 24 September 2013, Rousseff gave a speech at a United Nations summit in which she expressed her outrage at the NSA spying, and stated that "Brazil will present proposals for the establishment of a civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of the Internet and to ensure the effective protection of data that travels through the web."