ICANN and Internet Governance: Leveraging Technical Coordination to Realize Global Public Policy

Internet Governance: Territorializing Cyberspace?

“…Internet governance is not without its challenges; the Internet has grown in a piecemeal, uncoordinated fashion, it has traditionally lacked centralized authority, and it extends across a multitude of diverse jurisdictions. This has led to a common perception that the Internet is ungovernable, a “benevolent anarchy” (Klein , 193). However, the growing corpus of regulations contradicts this view.…”

“…A domain name is required to exist on the Internet, without that name a computer will not be found by others. Whoever controls the allocation of domain names controls the Internet (Klein , 195). This is a sizeable business; ICANN regulates a $3 billion per year domain name registration industry, which gives it considerable power over technical standards (Mueller and Woo , 7).…”

“…Mueller (, 248) asserts that ICANN has “created a mélange of participatory mechanisms, none of which have any real power … [it] is a parody of bottom‐up consensus building‐governance.” Others point out that the ICANN Board of Directors has always been subject to a higher authority, that of the U.S. government. “The Internet was internationalized and privatized but only under the watchful oversight of the US government” (Klein , 201).…”

Who should govern the internet?

“…ICANN controls a critical lever of power-the master root file-that can be used as an instrument of punishment to disrupt the operation of at least the ccTLDs [4]. For example, the ccTLD for Iraq was inoperable, stuck in a bureaucratic limbo at ICANN from 2002 to 2005, and the ccTLD for Libya (.ly) was inoperable for five days in 2004 due to a redelegation dispute.…”

Social and political challenges of the Digital Single Market and of increasing connectivity: digital literacy and network power

“…The Internet does not have an effective authoritative system for enacting rules and enforcing them. 28 A technological basis difficult to control and its global reach, which gives rise to jurisdictional conflicts, are the main difficulties that this idea of regulation presents. The United Nations have approved the Tunis Declaration, which reaffirms the governance of the Internet as a central theme of the agenda, advocating for a multi-stakeholder model.…”