Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

So the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, had an event earlier today 
that included keynotes from folks like Tim Berners-Lee. The W3C claims 
to pride itself on providing an "open forum" and its conference Web site 
clearly says: "Conversations and results are public."
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/eGov-policy-cfp

But the W3C's Danny Weitzner (a former CDTer, as longtime Politech 
readers may remember), believes that "public" actually means "not 
public." An excerpt from my writeup at News.com is below.

-Declan

---


http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9731230-7.html

The World Wide Web Consortium, which purports to be an "open forum" for 
standards discussion, doesn't exactly live up to its own claims.

Earlier on Monday, the W3C barred one of my colleagues, News.com 
reporter Anne Broache, from attending a "Toward More Transparent 
Government" conference held, ironically, in a government building in 
Washington, D.C.

The conference Web site clearly says: "Conversations and results are 
public."

But Danny Weitzner, one of the W3C's policy directors and event 
co-chair, repeatedly claimed in a followup telephone conversation that, 
by "public," the W3C actually means "closed to the public." Weitzner was 
the person who personally barred my colleague from entering the conference.

[...remainder snipped...]

Posted by Declan McCullagh on Jun 18, 2007 in category free-speech

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