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March 31, 2006
About Time
Susan Crawford: "How did the ICANN meeting go? Progress. Definite progress. We had a good public discussion about transparency...."
ICANN is important. And I know a number of people involved with it (Susan, Joi, Esther, Vint, Elliot) who are well-intentioned, thoughtful, and committed to making it work the way it should. I have nothing but respect for their efforts.
Yet I can't get this thought out of my mind. It takes seven years for the closest thing the Internet has to a global governance body to have a "good discussion" about transparency? And that's progress?
Posted by Kevin Werbach at March 31, 2006 8:18 AM
the thing you have to remember is how unique the exercise is. there is no real model for global governance of anything with all of these diverse interests involved.
specifically, this is global not international, which is a big concept. also, there are explicit roles for policy, business and technology in the process. these are very different groups, with different interests and different approaches. folks often talk about the IETF, which does great work. but the IETF is generally a group of like-minded people, primarily engineers. this makes things much easier.
transparency sounds easy and ICANN has had some very important trappings of transparency, but what susan refers to is more substantive and more powerful. and I am excited. thanks for noticing. expect a recruitment call!
now would you roll a horde alt already ;-)
Posted by: enoss at April 5, 2006 6:53 AM
Elliot, your comment reveals a serious misconception. My *main* is a Tauren Shaman, albeit on another server. I can't keep three characters going, so for now, my We Know involvement is on the Alliance side. Zug zug.
As for ICANN, I'm sympathetic, as I indicated. Transparency isn't easy, and you're right, nothing like this has really been done before. But we knew all that in 1998.
Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect things to move in the right direction sooner. And believe me, I want ICANN to succeed. I'm just concerned that the fundamental ambiguities at the heart of ICANN -- for example, whether it's just a technical management body or a global governance forum for the Internet -- have still not been resolved.
By all means, though, put out the recruitment call. If I can, I'll try to help.
Posted by: Kevin Werbach at April 5, 2006 10:06 AM
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at April 5, 2006 6:53 AM