Mercury News: ICANN adviser brings diplomatic expertise to Net governance. Here’s a little-known fact that should give people new appreciation for the complexities of regulating the Internet: The leader of a group rethinking Internet governance spends his spare time advising the United Nations — on the Balkans.
Yesterday’s Silicon Valley meeting of the ICANN At Large Study Committee was fascinating stuff for those who care about the future of an organization that has not kept some fundamental promises. Not least among those commitments has been the plan for governance that includes a strong contingent from outside the inner circle of the domain-name and trademark communities, which are now dominated by big business.
The Mountain View meeting was useful if the members of the at-large committee were listening. I think they were.
They heard from people with great expertise in several areas, including the non-profit community and technology experts, who said the system cannot simply be left to the insiders. There was disagreement on how ICANN can do this — worldwide elections are difficult under the best of circumstances — but there was almost no disagreement that the at-large community needs strong representation on the ICANN board.
I’ll be writing more about this in an upcoming column.