ICANN Shanghai in Review

The recent ICANN meeting in Shanghai was, from my perspective, a rather uneventful, but ultimately satisfying event. What I mean is that this meeting lacked the conflict and drama that has plagued a number of the last few meetings. While not everyone walked away with exactly what they wanted, I do firmly believe that this meeting truly provided every one that came with a reasonable position, the opportunity to be heard and taken into account as a part of the decision making process. This happened at a number of levels within the process, starting with the task forces all the way up to, and including, the board. This is "The dialogue" that I think that Bret had previously referred to and it was refreshing to see.

Shanghai itself was an interesting city. My shallow, western view of China was that of vast fields of workers toiling under communist direction. Nothing about Shanghai was even close to meeting this perception. Everything from the variety of cultural influences to the ridiculously enthusiastic architecture pointed to something far more progressive. For instance, Pudong, the "suburb" of Shanghai where the meeting was held was nothing but farmland ten years ago. Now, it is a gleaming approximation of a well-planned metropolis. I say approximation only because of the artificiality that comes from centrally planned development on such a scale. The 8 lane roadways and overly broad boulevards were the most obvious examples of this.

One thing about these suburbs and lane-ways that really drew my attention was the lack of potential harm that I perceived in my various travels throughout Shanghai. At every chance possible I try to wander off to some obscure part of the city in order to take in as much of the authentic experience as is possible in the limited amount of time afforded by these ICANN meetings. Even at home in Toronto, my photographic meanderings tend to draw me to the lesser travelled portions of the urban path rather than the obviously scenic attractions like High Park or Niagara Falls. Without fail, these jaunts typically lead me into places or situations where my "spidey-sense" - that subconscious feeling that something might *not* be right - starts to tingle.

Oddly, I didn't feel get this feeling even once while I was in Shanghai. Usually I can't go to the convenience store normally without feeling this way (ever experience Toronto traffic? ;). But there I was in a country of 1.28 billion people and none of them seemed to pose even the remotest of threats.

Also obvious was the absolute control that the State had over our Internet comings and goings despite the apparent agreement that ICANN had struck with the local sponsors. While no one got arrested for using SSL encrypted POP to check their email or for viewing the illegal porn-spam that most people get via email over that SSL encrypted link, the influence that the state had over the Internet was most apparent. Actually, I should say, *felt* most apparent. There is something about the fact that one might be censored that tends to promote the feeling that one *will* be censored.

For instance, when I hit the ground, I tried to drop an update into the blog. I had spent some considerable time installing Radio on my laptop to ensure that I could do some real, efficient blogging from the ground while I was China. I never expected that there would be an unforeseen blackhole between my Radio desktop and my Radio server, nor did I expect that something so seemingly insignificant might actually be state-sponsored censorship. I ran into John Crain, Esther Dyson and a few other late-night packeteers one evening and despite my reluctance to believe it, the general consensus was that I had indeed been censored. A trip to the Berkman real-time Chinese censorship checker-thingy seemed to confirm that while the local sponsors were indeed handing out "drinking pure" brand bottled water, their packet products weren't quite as refined.

Once I had a sufficient number of sufficiently credible people endorsing the "state censorship" analysis (as opposed to my "oops I screwed something up" analysis) of my technical issue, I started to think about where that magic line might be drawn. It certainly cast a different pale on the rather terse conversation that I had with the police regarding the illicit negotiation that Tim Denton and I had just concluded with an unlicensed street vendor in the Yu Yuan market. This and other similar small incidents (like the dirty looks that I got from a senior state official) really led me to think about how fortunate those that live in a free society are. I'm convinced that the true value of this privilege lies not with what the state allows you to read, but with what the state doesn't allow you to read. In other words, those of you that can read these words won't benefit from them as much as those that cannot. Yet another one of those "stop and smell the roses" lessons that occasionally crosses our path.

The meetings themselves were a very productive exercise from my point of view. Notwithstanding a few outbursts during the public forum and the regular criticisms from the Obstinant Hold-Outs, significant progress was made on several key issues. One thing that struck me about these particular meetings was the quality of the participation. While in some cases, getting a dialogue about the issues going was like pulling teeth, most parties at the table seemed intent on getting to the root of the problems and actually driving the discussion to a point where broad agreement could be achieved. ICANN needs a lot more of this, a fact that has been pointed out many, many times now. I can only hope that this trend will continue.

Several parties not in attendance noted the that the auditorium was virtually empty most of the time. Others still held this up as hard evidence of the demise of ICANN and its increasing irrelevance. What these factions fail to realize was that even though there were at least 500 people in attendance (a number confirmed by John Crain of ICANN), there was simply too much space for all of us to fill up. As is typical of most meetings of this nature, people were scattered all over the hotel during the times that the actual meetings were going on. Some camped out in the hallways, others still in the media center not to mention those that were out for food or simply resting in their rooms. So if we assume that 1/2 of the attendees were so inclined at any given point during the meetings, this left 250 people to fill up a theatre-style auditorium that was designed to accomodate well over 1000 people. There were enough private boxes in the auditorium that we could have allocated one to each board member and still had left-overs for the riff-raff like me ;)

The point is that this meeting was well attended by ICANN standards. I would however note the distinct absence of a large contingency from the Persistent Critics. A good thing in my books. While keeping ICANN honest is an important function, the quality of the criticism has significantly declined over the last year. Rather than keeping a powerful body in check, the Persistent Critics have only succeeded in distracting those of us that prefer to actual work to make a difference. Hopefully this destructive dynamic is a thing of the past.

As always, the issues have a way of diminishing the vibrancy of the experience. It has only been two weeks since the meeting and they feel like a lifetime ago. Hopefully at the next meeting I won't be forced into a position where I have to file my observations two weeks after the fact. I suspect that real-time reports will be infinitely more interesting for the reader.