Governance of Domain Names on the Internet

Currently, an important aspect of the Internet is governed by a private sector, international organisation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAN), which manages and oversees some of the critical technical underpinnings of the Internet such as the domain name system and Internet Protocol (IP) addressing. ICANN makes its policy decisions using a multistakeholder model of governance, whereby a bottom-up collaborative process is open to all constituencies of Internet stakeholders. This book examines the issues of internet governance and domain name system protocol, with a focus on how other aspects of the Internet may be governed in the future, especially in such areas as intellectual property, privacy, law enforcement, Internet free speech, and cybersecurity. Looking forward, the institutional nature of Internet governance could have far reaching implications on important policy decisions that will likely shape the future evolution of the Internet.