Alison Harcourt presented a paper on global activism for standards within SDOs. The paper provided an empirical overview of civil society action in two case studies: DRM4 for HTML5 and HTTP Status Code 451. George Christou presented a paper on issues of privacy and data protection. It focused on civil society action in case studies on Diginotar and Do Not Track. Seamus Simpson and Imir Rashid presented a paper on spectrum regulation. Focus was on analysis of global positions leading up to the 2015 spectrum allocation of the 694–790 MHz band in ITU Region 1 at the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC‑15) in Geneva in November 2015. The panel assessed the role of civil society groups as ‘norms entrepreneurs’ at the global level. Our external steering committee member, David Coen, acted as discussant.