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overview
This page is under construction. It
provides an introduction to the 'ICANN Wars': disagreement
about domain naming and more generally about the
governance of cyberspace.
ICANN
The Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN)
is the non-profit private sector body formed in 1998 to
assume responsibility from the US government for four key
Internet functions: management of the domain name system,
allocation of IP address space, assignment of protocol
parameters (the 'http' you see in web addresses is a
protocol) and management of the root server system.
Its determination of the
global rules for what a web site can be called and how
that site can be found has significant ramifications.
As a result it's been described by Dan Schiller - author
of Digital Capitalism (Cambridge, MIT Press 00) -
as the "unelected parliament of the Web" and by
Karl Auerbach and Milton Mueller
as "now essentially an organ of the
trademark lobby", setting policies that will
significantly affect free expression and privacy by
favouring commercial interests.
ICANN's currently
coming to grips with widespread, although
often unfair, criticism.
Debate is unlikely to be settled
following the 2000 elections to its board (Auerbach's now a
Director) and
Esther Dyson's
move from the chair. Dyson is a noted techno-libertarian.
She's the author
of best-seller Release 2.01. She's also one of the
more sober exponents of what's been described as the
'Californian Ideology', exemplified in her coauthorship
with the Toffler & Gilder of the Cyberspace Magna
Carta.
The
CDT-Common Cause study noted later in this profile
comments that
In a basic
sense, ICANN faces an age-old question that people face
when trying to build a governing process for everything
from a nation to a small organization: How can the
benefits and energies of democracy be balanced with the
need for reasoned and deliberative decision-making?
ICANN
carries a narrow technical mandate to ensure the
reliable and efficient functioning of the DNS, and there
is general consensus in the ICANN community that the
At-Large elections should produce board directors who
are technically knowledgeable and dedicated to
preventing ICANN from moving beyond its technical
mission into wider regulatory matters (e.g. imposing
content restrictions or taxes on domain name holders).
At the same time, ICANN's legitimacy as an international
Internet oversight body rests on providing those
affected by its policies with a fair opportunity to
participate ....
structure
ICANN
consists of a Board (most members appointed or coopted,
some elected by 'Members-at-large' in a process described
later in this profile), a small US-based secretariat and
three supporting organisations.
The Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO)
is concerned with the DNS, the system of names commonly
used to identify Internet locations and resources. The DNS
translates hierarchically-structured, easy-to-remember
names (such as www.caslon.com.au) into IP addresses - eg 123.9.325.421
- that uniquely identify the net's networked computers.
The Address Supporting Organization (ASO)
is concerned with the system of IP addresses. The Protocol
Supporting Organization (PSO)
deals with the assignment of unique parameters for
Internet protocols, the technical standards that let
devices exchange information and manage communications
over the net.
ICANN does not register domain names itself. Instead, it
delegates that responsibility to national registrars. In
Australia the main registrar is currently MelbourneIT,
although new registrars are likely to be introduced as
part of the move to industry self-regulation and
competition under the oversight of the au Domain
Administration (auDA).
Disputes about domain name allocation are generally
handled under the provisions of ICANN's Uniform Dispute
Resolution Process (UDRP),
administered by delegates such as the World Intellectual
Property Organization's Arbitration Center. That process
is dealt with later in this profile.
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