I’ve a piece in The Guardian today which is a broad summary of the IGF last week. It basically says that what could have been a disaster ended up being a success and finishes with Nitin Desai’s arranged marriage analogy – which I think was brilliant.
Internet governance: it’s like an arranged marriage
The first UN-backed forum started out as farce – but turned into a triumph
Kieren McCarthy
Thursday November 9, 2006
The GuardianLithuania vs Azerbaijan has to be one of the least likely conflicts imaginable. But as attendees at the UN-backed Internet Governance Forum in Greece learned last week, never underestimate the internet’s ability to throw up novel problems…
What’s odd is that I supplied one of my photos to illustrate the piece, and it appears that they used someone else’s. Funny how people are used to their own routes and ways of doing things.
I’ll also note, at the risk of upsetting some perfectly pleasant people, that the ITU asked if it could use my pics for their edition of ITU News. I said sure, pointing out the non-commercial Creative Commons licence I have stuck them under. But ITU News take money from its members (thousands of pounds annually from 7,500 subscribers) so when asked for hi-res versions, I checked it out and asked for the NUJ-rated payment.
Seems £200 is too much for the International Telecommunication Union’s budget. Since the UN didn’t have an official snapper, I’m intrigued to see how the ITU will now illustrate the event. Any subscribers please send me a scan when it arrives.
