overview

This profile provides an introduction to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) and to the 'ICANN Wars': disagreement about domain naming and more generally about the governance of cyberspace.

It includes information about the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP).

     contents of this profile

The following pages cover -

• history - ICANN's history
• structure, personnel, review - the board, supporting organisations such as the DNSO, the secretariat and review mechanisms
• activity - responsibilities, principles and practices, including debate about alternative root schemes
• studies - legal, economic, political and other studies about ICANN and governance of the domain name system
• advocacy - a map of business, consumer and other advocacy groups that seek to influence ICANN's operation or merely to supplant it
• community participation - the contentious ICANN elections, debate about democratising cyberspace and participation in ICANN decisionmaking through bodies such as the At-Large organisation
• UDRP - the process under ICANN auspices for resolving disputes about domain names
• money - comments on ICANN's resources and expenditure, the cost of participation and what is at stake
• icannauts - the demographics of ICANN's committees and meetings
• landmarks - a basic chronology of ICANN and the UDRP

They are supplemented by four profiles -

• a multi-page discussion of the role, structure and activities of auDA, the Australian domain administrator
• a similar profile on its New Zealand counterpart
• a complementary introduction to the domain name system (DNS). It explains gTLDs, ccTLDs and 2LDs; considers issues such as domain name valuation; provides a map of the domain name industry; and discusses domain name disputes
• a profile on trademarks, including pointers to major works on Australian and overseas legislation, trademark databases and the intersection between the DNS and trademarks

     orientation

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) is an international nonprofit private sector body.

It was 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)
• management of the root server system. 

More information about technical and policy aspects of naming is found in the Network guide, Governance guide and Domains profile on this site.

ICANN's 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 has been described by Dan Schiller - author of Digital Capitalism (Cambridge: MIT Press 2000) - 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 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), discussed here.

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.

     debate and demonisation

ICANN continues to face widespread, although generally uninformed and often unfair, criticism. 

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 .... 

A key challenge facing the organisation is resolving innate and inescapable tensions regarding claims to 'bottom up' governance or inclusiveness and the demands of developing and administering policy for a global network in which enthusiasm or conviction is not a substitute for political savvy or technical expertise.

Another challenge, one that ICANN increasing seems to have lost, is substantiating its commitment to 'public interest' rather than the commercial interest of the domain name industry (registry operators, registrars, resellers and domainers). The weakness of ICANN's response to criticisms of the proliferation of new gTLDs (and for example its disregard of the underwhelming case made in its own commissioned studies) lends support to criticisms that it has become an example of bureaucratic capture, ie an ostensibly independent body driven by the entities it is meant to regulate.

A third challenge is achieving independence of the US government.

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