[governance] ICANN and the IGF

[Veni Markovski]

At 15:52 11/18/2007  +0100, Vittorio wrote:

>But this is not your fault, it's the fault of the stupid approach 
>that was devised by the ICANN leadership in the last years, when 
>they were scared by the prospect of a discussion, and thus did 
>whatever they could to prevent it. They behaved defensively as if 
>they had anything to hide or to be ashamed for, which in a mediatic 
>world, as everyone knows, implies an admission to have something to 
>hide or to be ashamed for, even when that is not true in reality.

Would you like to be more precise here? I don't remember such an 
approach, at least when I was on the Board. The very fact that there 
was ICANN representative(s) both in the WGIG and the AG is a clear 
sign that this is not the case.

So, some of the discussion was led by academic people, and some of 
them have never had technical expertise, but as we know in a 
political environment it is not really important. btw, as for the 
outcome of the WSIS, there were people who were warning that the only 
result of it will be bashing of the existing organizations. And - 
voila - that's what happened.

ICANN has been trying to be part of the solution (because the WSIS 
created a problem, and it required a solution, or else one would be 
left in the landscape) since 2003, and I think it's not fair of you 
to state something like "stupid approach" by "ICANN leadership", and 
make statement that "they were scared" of a discussion. You probably 
mistake this with the lack of desire to be proactive, and engage in a 
way you thought correct? Plus, at some point you were also part of 
this "leadership", so I guess you don't mean you were "stupid"?

Best
veni

P.S. It is another issue, that if it wasn't for ICANN, ISOC, and a 
few other organizations to provide experts to these and other groups, 
the discussion would have been completely political, and with no 
technical ground whatsoever.
As you probably recollect, the technical community (engineers, 
RFC-writers, etc.) have always been very critical about the way the 
WSIS goes. If you also remember, the Civil Society (CS) had also been 
a strange phenomenon around the WSIS. The Internet Governance caucus 
was created, if I am not mistaken, by Y J Park; who - with Milton - 
didn't manage to achieve any success with the NCDNHC at ICANN in the 
beginning (1999 - 2000). Today YJ is a student at the same university 
Milton is teaching. The Caucus was created for a number of reasons, 
but we should not forget that among them it was giving access to the 
CS Bureau to the WSIS. And the word "Bureau" was giving some extra 
power; at least in the view of some. You may have been there at that 
time - I just don't remember. But I remember well the establishment 
of another of the groups - the European Caucus, which ended up as 
European - North American one; Hans Klein (then with CPSR) was one of 
the active people there. Robert Guerra was the other one; at some 
point the only one.  

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