Post-ICANN
Being at an ICANN meeting means (if I try to pay attention to what's going on) I can't be online except for communications having to do with the meeting itself. So I feel as if I've been away for a long time.
1. The new Barton bill is being blasted, and rightly so, for the absence of any provisions about packet discrimination by network providers. Although it does allow for FCC adjudication of disputes arising out of noncompliance with the Commission's famous Principles, these adjudications will be one-off, unreviewable, non-precedental affairs. And, under the bill, the Commission would have no rulemaking authority to say anything broadly about discrimination against or blocking of services.
2. How did the ICANN meeting go? Progress. Definite progress. We had a good public discussion about transparency and ways we could have meeting notes created that would be actually useful and meaningful. We talked a great deal in our private meetings about operational matters and about how to make ICANN work more smoothly (and less secretively). We made a public statement about a new gTLD round, and we discussed (in public, not a scripted conversation) internationalized domain name issues at length. We listened closely to what people had to say and we tried to respond. Many board members (I think, in the end, all) spoke publicly and asked and answered questions.
Some things didn't go well. The Board was constantly tied up in meetings or formal receptions that kept us from going to the happy hours (there were free drinks available for everyone every night in a very nice place), and that stopped us from talking to people and made us seem aloof. We have to change that. We couldn't go to the GNSO council public forum because we were in other meetings. We read reports during the public forum, which limited the time for public comment (that's going to change for the next meeting). We have an extremely constrained reconsideration process and an independent review process that has never been used (and whose scope is narrow). We don't plan our private meetings well enough (yet — we're working on that).
So it's a mixed bag, but it was better than it could have been, and I think things will continue to get better. I have high hopes for the GNSO Review that's going on, and I think the reviews of other parts of ICANN will also be helpful.
3. A friend of mine wrote to me and said that the last post I wrote that she understood was about doors being stuck closed, and could I please do another one of those? Here is one of those:
I used to have a big grey duffle suitcase that was so big that it could be seen from space. It was called “seen from space,” and it was a well-traveled bag. It finally gave up after Vancouver, with a big rip in the side. I tried to replace it, but I ended up with a bag that would never be seen from space and is frankly too small to fit all my stuff. So this afternoon I went for a walk with the idea of getting a New Zealand enormous bag to take its place. I found just the place — a small shop selling enormous suitcases.
The woman helping me was young and cheerful. We tried out several bags, dragging them out and comparing just how enormous they were and how great their potential for expansion was. Blue? Black? Red? I made the choice (after a lot of back and forth) she threw in a free cabin bag, and we were chuckling over just how cheap the whole thing was going to be. She ran my credit card through her machine.
And then she said, “Oh. [actually, “Aow”.] We don't take American Express [”amaeirikin expriss”]. Sorry [”soaree”].”
That was it — we were done — I don't carry another credit card. So we just said goodbye, and I walked away feeling suddenly relieved that I wasn't dragging the biggest suitcase on the planet behind me.