The five-letter answer is ICANN. Nominally, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a private corporation. A recent meeting in Tunis of the WSIS sparked up the debate for the independence of ICANN and its transformation to a more “international” entity.

Currently, ICANN’s founding document states that “neither national governments acting as sovereigns nor intergovernmental organizations acting as representatives of governments should participate in management of Internet names and addresses.” In effect, the corporation’s bylaws prohibit government officials from sitting on the Board of Directors.

The critics of ICANN, which is mostly the EU, argue that ICANN is a US corporation and as such is not independent to the extent it should be. After all, the Internet is not just US “space” anymore. One suggestion was to transfer the control to a UN committee which will ensure a high level of independence from the government.

Another argument, albeit extreme, is that the US might use ICANN as a beating stick for countries they consider a threat, e.g. Iran or North Korea. They could (in theory) shut-down the TLD (the country-specific domain extension) for that particular country immobilizing all sites based on that domain, including government sites.

In an article on the BBC’s site, US rejects changes to net control, Ambassador David Gross is quoted to say: “We will not agree to the UN taking over the management of the internet. Some countries want that. We think that’s unacceptable.”

Obviously, this is a flat rejection of the proposal by the EU. The defense of the US position is simple: not all countries share the same ideas about freedom of expression. Relegating this authority to a UN committee might infringe on the freedom of expression.

“Reporters Without Borders” officially supports the US position with an example that speaks for itself – the UN committee for human rights is currently chaired by Libya.

The WSIS meeting in Tunis ended with ICANN getting a 5 year extension. Hopefully, in 5 years all rogue states (from the US point of view) will adopt a US-like freedom of speech. I strongly doubt this will happen, so we’ll be staying with ICANN for some decades to come. (Unless registrars like GoDaddy rebel against it)

Note: Originally posted at SmartApps