marrakech

ICANN Marrakech: Pros and sickos

by kierenmccarthy on June 30, 2006

ICANN Marrakech is over, save the Board meeting. And this fact was – as it always is – sufficient reason for everyone to head to the bar and mull things over while consuming (un)healthy quantities of booze.

What was the upshot of this week-long meeting in Morocco? Well, the general bottom-up consensus was that not much had happened. Except really it had. And the feeling was that it had been a very amiable meeting. Which, in a deeper sense, it hadn’t.

The reality is that ICANN Marrakech has, albeit pleasantly, lived under the shadow of the US government’s MoU renewal. What really is shameful is that there wasn’t a single public meeting in which this vitally important contract was discussed. Instead, we have had a semi-official, parallel and secret ICANN process instituted to discuss the matter, and a long series of constituencies pondering how best to deal with it, which will most likely contribute little or nothing to the final result.

While I’m being negative and grumpy about a meeting that most people seem to have enjoyed, here’s a list of wrongs. After that, it’s time to discuss the prostitutes.

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ICANN Marrakech: Arguments and gunfire

by kierenmccarthy on June 28, 2006

It’s difficult to know if there is anything more frustrating that being unable to get on the Internet at an ICANN meeting, but then I’m certain that the greengrocers of Georgia or undertakers of Uxbridge have an anecdote or two to put that in shadow.

While it’s nice having a much bigger conference venue than usual – no more cramming on plastic chairs – its size has made it increasingly difficult to find anyone. I know for a fact that a series of people I want to catch up with are here somewhere because everyone keeps telling me they’ve seen them. But can I find them? Everyone has ended up communicating with email which is fine except for if you can’t get an Internet connection at which point you realise that you have rudely stood-up three different people without even being aware of it. And it’s still only 11am.

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