It is going to be a particularly crazy year in terms of Internet policy and governance, maybe even more than so than 2005, when the World Summit on the Information Society happened.
NPR used the launch of the new gTLD program last week to cover the other big issue – actual governance of the Internet. The slow build up of pressure to again try to bring the Internet under United Nations control is going to let out another big blast of steam this December in Dubai at the WCIT meeting when governments – and only governments – try to rewrite the ITU’s International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) to incorporate the Internet. It will be a big fight and I’ll be heading over there to shine as big a spotlight on the weird world of inter-governmental politics as possible.
Anyway, I was interviewed as was Super Rod of ICANN and David Gross – who was the US’ main man in charge during the WSIS negotiations. You can read the piece online, but it was designed for radio, so listening is much better in this case.
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ICANN public comments: a glacier moving in the wrong direction
by kierenmccarthy on September 6, 2011
I am both happy and depressed to see a public comment period open at ICANN talking about making changes to ICANN’s public comment period process.
With appalling inevitability, everything about the comment period highlights the problems that exist with the public comment period process. No one really knows about it, and it’s not being promoted anywhere. The text talking about it is indecipherable. The main thing it is about comes as a hefty PDF report that no one will read. The report itself was put together by a small group of people who didn’t engage is any useful effort to dig into any data, evidence or information.
Very few people will respond. Those that do will not have their comments listened to. There will be no follow-up. And the end result will be that ICANN convinces itself that actually the comment period process isn’t that bad after all.
I was working on this issue *five years ago*. And the only thing that has changed is that the comment period page is now in pastel colours.
But…
I swallowed all that frustration and just sent in a comment (the first but hopefully not the only one) in a pathetic attempt to actually help. It is, I think, positive and helpful. I expect it to be partially read and then ignored. And for the complaints about the process to start up all over again in two years’ time. Still, you’ve got to try.
Here’s what I sent:
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