ACTA - We *could* tell you, but we'd have to kill you! - Mark Harris

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is coming up fast. It's being negotiated in secret by a boy's club of developed nations and could have a huge impact on the lives of everyone, online and off. Because we don't know what's in it, it's hard to be specific, but we can talk about the process being used to negotiate it, which is dishonest and seeks to block the general public from having input.

In April, the next ACTA round is being held in New Zealand. We need to be ready for it.

About Mark Harris

Mark Harris is an independent consultant, specialising in information technology and management, particularly around the Internet.

His blog about ACTA (and copyright) is On the Gripping Hand and he's spoken about ACTA on RadioNZ to Kim Hill and Kathryn Ryan. He's also a member of the http://acta.net.nz/ group, protesting NZ's participation in the treaty, and of the Creative freedom Foundation and the NZ Open Source Society.

In a previous life, while a public servant and IT specialist at NZPO, PostBank, IRD, MoRST and the State Services Commission's e-Government Unit, he led the GOVIS forum for 3 years, and was part of a number of cross-agency projects around Y2K, e-government and open standards. While at SSC, Mark developed and managed the Government Web Guidelines (now Standards) through to Cabinet approval, managed the govt.nz second level domain space and managed the New Zealand Government Online website.

During the 1990's, he was a Councillor of the Internet Society of New Zealand (now InternetNZ) as it took on the task of managing the .nz top level domain, served 5 years and came back in the 00's for a further two. Last year, he fronted the team that put together the Open Government BarCamp and hackfest.

In his spare time (!), he's been a theatre actor/director/writer/technician since 1979 (sometimes for money!) and has also worked in television and films (IT pays better).

Ignite Wellington is on Tuesday, 2 March 2010 - register to be inspired, amused, educated and amazed.