<incom> ICANN, ITU and UNESCO will forge universal standards towards a multilingual cyberspace

[Geert Lovink]

Hi, related is the goodbye letter that Joi Ito wrote after he stepped  
down from the ICANN board. He did not want to be re-elected. A lot is  
not being said in this letter so please activate your  
reading-between-the-lines mode. Geert

---

http://joi.ito.com/archives/2007/11/12/ 
three_years_with_icann.html#comments

November 12, 2007
Joi Ito: Three years with ICANN

What used to think ICANN was like...

Apologies for the delay in writing the post. I've been trying to think  
about what to say and have just decided that I better write it before  
my thoughts get old...

I joined the ICANN board during the December 2004 ICANN meeting in Cape  
Town. I served for a three year term and stepped down at this last  
meeting in Los Angeles and didn't run for another term. My apologies to  
all of the ICANN community and the people who helped me learn about and  
participate in the complex but important process that is ICANN.

Before joining ICANN, I thought that ICANN was the only part of the  
Internet that wasn't really working. I knew that there must be a better  
way to do what ICANN does, but I couldn't be bothered to figure it out.  
I'd agree with people who said things like, "it should just be  
distributed" or "it should just be first come first serve" or "we  
should just get rid of it." People from ICANN would say, "it's more  
complicated than that" or "at this point that would be impossible."

After being part of the process for three years, I find myself saying  
those same things and feeling a sense of exasperation at the people who  
take pot shots at ICANN from the peanut gallery without really trying  
to help or change things. I also have gained a huge respect for most of  
the people who participate in ICANN, many as volunteers, trying to  
improve the process and keep the Internet running.

With all of it's tumultuous history and bumps and warts, ICANN, in my  
opinion, is the best way that we can manage names and numbers on the  
Internet and any new thing to try to do what it does would be less fair  
and probably wouldn't work.

There are some technical architectures and ideas that might make ICANN  
less relevant, which would be a good thing. However, even relatively  
obvious things like IPv6, IDNs and DNSEC are having a hard time getting  
traction. I think that it would be nearly impossible to "redesign the  
DNS" and get people to use it. It would be like trying to redesign a  
flying airplane. On the other hand, their might be some evolutionary  
changes that make domain names less relevant.

The ICANN process as it is currently working involves a number of  
supporting organizations that feed into a consensus and policy  
development process. The board is 15 people, 8 who are "neutral" and  
nominated from the public through the nomcom process and 7 who are  
elected from the supporting organizations. It is geographically and  
otherwise fairly well distributed and balanced. It is nearly impossible  
to "capture" the process. If any stakeholder wants to participate, they  
just have to show up.

The problem that ICANN has is not one of being unfair, the problem that  
ICANN has is the difficulty and time required in trying to reach  
consensus on difficult issues. The other problem is that most of the  
people who are affected by the decisions, the average users, don't know  
or care about ICANN. Trying to figure out an better way to get their  
input has always been an issue, but is one that is not unique for  
ICANN. All of politics and collective action share the difficulty in  
getting the public to care about issues that affect them.

When I was urged by a number of people to join the board, I thought of  
my term on the board as a kind of "jury duty". I had been benefiting  
from the Internet running properly for the last decade, building  
businesses and my social network on the Internet. I felt that three  
years would be a kind of "community service" to give back some of what  
I had received. The board work included nearly monthly conference  
calls, probably several thousand pages of reading, two face-to-face  
board retreats and three meetings per year. The meetings are a week  
long. This adds up to nearly two months or more of work a year.

As the new chairman of Creative Commons and my portfolio of companies  
requiring more and more of my time, I just couldn't justify serving  
another term. I calculated that I spent more time reading about and  
discussion whether we should allow .xxx than I spent on any one  
portfolio company this year... and at the end of it, I voted in the  
minority and .xxx was shot down and I ended up as just a voting  
statistic.

Having said that, I have no regrets. I met amazing people, learned a  
lot about how the Internet works and have gained a great respect for  
the people and the organizations that make up and contribute to ICANN.  
Many thanks to the ICANN staff, board and various constituents who have  
made my term a fruitful and exciting one.