ICANN day
So we're here in Sao Paulo. Last night was the first official Board event — a nice dinner. Today we met in committees during the morning and then as a Board for the afternoon. It was a pretty good afternoon meeting, devoted mostly to listing (but not ranking) priorities for 2007 and talking about what is coming up this week. Plus internal Board machinations — who's leading, who's on what committee. We have three new Board members (two really new, one Board liaison becoming a Board member).
Tonight there was a dinner with the GNSO council and staff, with semi-assigned seating (two Board members per table, different constituency reps, a staff member) and topics set for conversation. It was quite useful as a format, I thought.
The topics tonight were: the LSE GNSO evaluation (process for considering it); the new gLTD process; and the nominating committee.
So that was Day 1. Kieren McCarthy put together a great remote site for people to use here.
Why the US needs to get internet access policy right
Here's yet another reason why the U.S. should make sure it gets its highspeed internet access policy right: the rest of the world is watching.
The same forces that are combining to control the internet in the U.S. — law enforcement, incumbent network providers, the content industry — have the same incentives in other countries. It's very convenient for them, politically, to point to what the U.S. is doing. So, say you're in India and policy now requires open access be provided to competitive ISPs. You can point to the U.S., if you're an incumbent Indian telephone company, and say “see, in the U.S. they're not doing this. Why should we?”
If we go backwards, if we give up on the idea of the neutral internet which has prompted such explosive economic growth and transformed lives all over the world, we'll be leading the rest of the world backwards as well. Why would we do that?
For whatever reason, people around the world still watch what the U.S. does in the communications realm. We need to be conscious that we still have the remains of a leadership position in the world. We really need to get this right.