The Coalition was founded under the name Internet Bill of Rights Coalition and hence the history uses this name for the most part.

The IPR issued a progress report to the IGF Sectretariat in June 2008

A more general history of the development of the initiative was published in "The Humanization of Internet Governance: A Roadmap Towards a Comprehensive Global (Human) Rights Architecture for the Internet", Wolfgang Benedek , Matthias C. Kettemann  and Max Senges, Third Annual GigaNet Symposium | 2 December 2008 | Hyderabad, India

Internet Bill of Rights, which builds upon the ‘International Bill of Human Rights consisting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. Let us briefly review the historic evolution and aims of the Internet Bill of Rights initiative.

The Internet Bill of Rights (IBR) initiative was founded following an appeal (IBR, 2005) authored by the former chair of the European Data Protection Agencies Council, Stefano Rodotà, that highlighted the necessity of a ‘Charter of the Rights of the Net’. The appeal which was endorsed by a wide variety of eminent experts (like Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman) highlights the potential of the Internet:

The Internet is the widest public space that mankind has ever known. A space where everybody can have their say, acquire knowledge, create ideas and not just information, exercise their right to criticize, to discuss, to take part in the broader political life, and thus to build a different world of which everybody can claim to be an equal citizen (ibid).

The appeal also describes the dangers that are immanent in a powerful new infrastructure like the Internet:

In the name of security, liberties are restricted. In the name of a short-sighted market approach, chances of a fair access to knowledge are limited. Alliances between corporations and authoritarian States try to impose new forms of censorship. The Internet must not become an instrument to better control the millions of people who use it, to grab personal information from people against their will, to seal the new forms of knowledge behind proprietary fences (ibid).

The appeal, which was formally presented at the second WSIS by the government of Italy, led to the creation of the Dynamic Coalition on an Internet Bill of Rights in the framework of the yearly Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The IGF was agreed to have multi-stakeholder (online) working groups as its institutions to prepare and deliberate specific Internet Governance matters during the times between the physical IGF meetings. The IBR became one of these Dynamic Coalitions.

Since its inception in 2005, the coalition has organized events to promote the creation of, and deliberate on proposals on the concrete form and workings of an Internet Bill of Rights at the IGF in Athens, as well as during the second IGF in Rio. One result was that the governments of Italy and Brazil have issued a joined declaration which highlights that a “set of principles is necessary to allow a democratic and inclusive development of the Internet“ (IBR, 2007).

In October 2008 the IBR is a multi-stakeholder coalition with more than 110 members following and participating in the discussions and planning conducted over its mailing list. The coalition is a self-organizing entity. Early 2008, the coalition defined its mission as providing

a platform facilitating collaboration and dovetailing the work of the Dynamic Coalitions especially as they relate to Rights on the Internet. It wants to build a collection and showcase for the federated results of all the Dynamic Coalitions from the IGF (IBR, 2008).

The mission/vision statement further outlines the aim of the coalition to create a platform for the emergence and agreement on definitions of Internet Rights (a notion which encompasses all (human) rights on the Internet), an Internet Rights watch (implying the build-up of a repository of precedences and coverage of Internet Rights cases), as well as a means to translate and mainstream these Internet Rights standards into ‘human readable’ standardized formats so users and providers of services become more aware of the rights they have on any given website or when using services. Shortly thereafter, in summer of 2008, the coalition members felt it beneficial to give the IBR community a charter, which, in turn, led to the creation of a steering committee and a chair , who coordinates and facilitates the discourse and other activities of the coalition.

Working towards the IGF 2008 in Hyderabad, India, the IBR is developing a new website and preparing two events at this years face to face meeting. The initiative aims to build stronger alliance with the related IGF coalitions and the secretariat in order to achieve a more prominent position of Rights in the IGF agenda and mainstreaming Human Rights in the everyday work of the stakeholders. The new online environment is meant to market the initiative to a wider public and to allow for content contributions through syndication and registered users of the platform.
 

IBR (2005). Appeal, http://internet-bill-of-rights.org/en/appeal.php.
IBR (2007). Joint Declaration on Internet Rights by the Minister of Culture of Brazil and the Undersecretary for Communications of Italy, http://internet-bill-of-rights.org/file/pdf/Joint%20Declaration%20Brazil....
IBR (2008). Internet Bill of Rights Coalition Mission Statement, www.socialtext.net/internet-bill-of-rights/index.cgi?statement_for_the_g....