[governance] RE: Caucus at IGF stock taking meeting

[David Allen]

At 2:06 PM -0500 2/3/07, George Sadowsky wrote:
>David,
>
>You have made an amazing comment.

Think that depends on your perspective.

>First, let's remember that multilingual documents, as differentiated from domain names, have been around for quite a few years.  The UNICODE consortium has been around since 1989, I think, and has worked hard to make a consistent and usable coding for most of the world's scripts.  They are in use all over the world. You are imputing to much importance to the IDN issue as opposed to the general multi-script issue.  note that links containing domain names are often hidden in documents, and clicking on a piece of text in the user's own script can accomplish the selection of a web page.

This gets at the meat of it.

I chose, for brevity, not to traipse out the detail, but when we dig, the detail matters.

Elites - dealing from a non-Roman script - who are not brought up short by the pesky and puzzling Roman characters at the end of a URL, will have had access.  The many billions not so blessed are effectively denied.  (Among others, clicking access from within a doc is only possible if you can call up the doc in the first place!  That is an unhelpful attempt at diversion from what matters.)

Most especially, the point - as we all know - is access, not just for elites, but for all.

Now on to the rest of the meal.

>Second, you accuse ICANN of proactive foot-dragging with respect to internationalizing domain names.  I don't see any recognition that this has been a difficult problem to solve, or that the locus for the technical work needed to solve it is primarily the IETF, is an organization to which anyone clueful from any country can contribute. I see no recognition that there are significant stability and security issues in getting a good solution, and that doing it right is preferable to doing too quickly, having it break and then repairing the damage and doing it over.
>
>Furthermore, you are imputing motive to ICANN that it really wanted to do this slowly and thereby presumably deny Internet access to a whole lot of people.  Do you really believe this?

I invite your conversations with knowledgeable folk, among the 5 billion, with quite long experience of the ICANN process and of ML (multilingual).

According to reports, early on with 'Net innovators English-speaking, and enough to do about a Roman-scripted 'Net, non-attention to non-Roman scripts was perhaps not surprising.  But after that, facts speak far louder than any protestations.

I heard firsthand at the ICANN '04 meeting in KL how ML was 'very difficult,' 'we must go slowly,' 'we don't really know what the solution will be.'  This, in the face of strongly expressed frustration, in the meeting, from many representatives of the 5 billion, that they had already waited years and they were not interested in waiting more.  That discussion was three years ago.

It was clear to me, anyway, then, that ICANN's future turned to some significant extent on whether it would be ghettoized to the 1 billion in the developed world, or would it be responsive to the other 80+ percent.

At about that time in fact, some three years ago, China was rolling out a fully ML root, to resolve fully Chinese URLs.  And it operated seamlessly with the root for the other, Roman-based 1 billion.  About a year ago now, the Western world was more than surprised to learn of that development, by then at least a couple of years underway, with by now many tens of millions of users.  I was familiar, since I was at least one of those who broke the news to the Western press at the time.

That same technology was available to be used three years ago, even on a stopgap basis - at the same time I was hearing at KL that 'we better go slow,' 'who knows if we will find a solution.'  And the billion in China had already been waiting some years and were being told by the first billion to wait some more years.  In fact the rest of the CJK community had implementations before China did, so the technology was available earlier, in fact, years before.

It may be comfortable to say, 'wait,' if you are in the 1 billion with an already-familiar alphabet.  Your response may differ if you are in the 5 billion.

Along this way, once the reality of the Chinese implementation could not be denied and had finally alarmed ICANN, there were grudging but hasty steps.  (Suddenly, 'this is too difficult' disappeared, if the proposal brought forward was ill-conceived.)  Barely concealed, there was also an unfortunate effort to allow Western incumbents the fortunes that would flow from registration of ML identities.  That of course will, in the end, be thwarted in the workings of geopolitics.

But that there was an attempt - once grudging, hasty steps on ML were finally mooted - speaks to capture, non-transparency and non-accountability.  How much more profoundly does that message of non-accountability come across, by telling the other 5 billion to 'wait.'

If we are about anything, certainly access, then we better work for the non-elite, among the other 5 billion, not to be blocked at the address bar.

I will be glad to refer anyone, offlist, to sources, including the central actors in the ML that has been available for some years.

>Finally you note that "the practical prospect for connection by ~5 billion folks has been effectively evaporated."  Do you mean to imply that when the IDN issue is finally resolved, that even then these 5 billion people are forever banished from such connectivity? Evaporation is generally a one way process after all.

Hopefully, despite global warming, there is still a cycle, where that which is evaporated once again condenses ...

I sought a word with less sting than 'denied.'  Now, by the need for more directness, we are denied the euphemism.

>Perhaps you'd like to modify your observation, which may have been written a bit emotionally and hastily?

Those who would guide policy development need first and foremost to equip themselves with the facts, rather than impugn those who might convey them.

Top of the list in last summer's review of ICANN was a wide and clarion call for transparency and accountability.  There was little disagreement on the lack thereof, certainly on the need to bring it inhouse, among even ICANN's closest supporters and even from within ICANN itself.  The sad tale I have recounted here resonates with an underline.

If this discussion is to be useful, it will be because those contributing to it renew their commitment to, and do contribute to, the transparency and accountability that this disastrous episode shows to be evaporated.

>Regards,
>
>George

David

>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>At 1:09 PM -0500 2/3/07, David Allen wrote:
>>At 9:52 AM -0500 2/3/07, George Sadowsky wrote:
>>>ICANN does not have the power of excluding anyone from the Internet.
>>
>>Sorry, but this simply is not true.
>>
>>By proactive foot-dragging on multi-lingualization, over now quite a number of years, the practical prospect for connection by ~5 billion folks has been effectively evaporated.
>>
>>David

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