Re: [ICANN-EU] ICANN MEMBERS' FORUM: Los Angeles, Nov. 12

["Alan Lenton" <alan@ibgames.com>]

I too have my doubts, but I feel we have to start somewhere, and I will give
at least qualified support to any initiatives like this.

It seems to me that we are faced with a number of problems that we are going
to have to resolve over time. At large members do not even have a common
language, let alone a common culture. Welding that into some sort of
'movement' to acheive things in ICANN is going to be a total nightmare, but
the only alternative is to shrug and allow the Internet to become the
preserve of the rich and the powerful.

My experience with Americans is that when they are opposed to something they
tend to organise a lobbying effort, rather than a 'mass' movement, and I
think that this cultural tendency shows through in the language being used
to call this meeting.

This isn't going to be easy, but I think the very existence of this mailing
list is a start (thank you Thomas!) is a start. The other point is that if
we are serious then ICANN is only one point on which pressure is going to
have to be applied. We are also going to have to deal with national
governments, the EU bureaucracy, and international issues like the
CyberCrime Treaty and software patents.

Is this too daunting even to make a start on?

No. We are not alone, there are many special interest groups that oppose
different bits of what is happening, but few can see the overall picture.
Part of our task, which focusses on what we want the Internet to become, is
to support those partial efforts and to educate people to see the whole
picture.

And there is one other thing that we will have to deal with - we don't all
have the same view of what the Internet should be! This will cause
difficulties, no two ways about it. But if we retain the view in mind that
we want an Internet where those different views can flourish, we will over
come the problems.

Ooops - I didn't mean to pontificate.

Alan Lenton