The internet is designed to have no single point of failure. That isn't the same as having no single point of control.
The origins of the internet were in the US government's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. In the 1980s, universities around the world had assumed a major role in the internet, including funding many of the data links that made it possible. The early 1990s saw the internet extend beyond campuses and the military, with internet service providers charging individuals and companies to connect. By the mid 1990s, the US government had mostly withdrawn from being direct responsible for the internet responsibility and various aspects of the internet were placed in private hands.
The most important source of power over the internet as it currently exists is control over registration of internet real estate such as the names and numbers that allow users to connect around the globe.
If you want to send a request over the internet, you need to know the address you are looking for. That address comes in two forms: a number and a name. The number will look something like 152.168.7.25 and the name something like <http://www.dsp.org.au>. A service called the Domain Name Service converts names and numbers. Keeping track of all the names and numbers, and the rules by which they are used, is central to the internet.
After various early forms, a June 1998 white paper from the US Department of Commerce proposed establishing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This now has 19 directors (five were elected over the past couple of months by ICANN's 75,000 members). The rest come from a range of organisations, most directly or indirectly representing corporate interests in the internet field. Chairman Vint Cerf is an internet founder, leader of the Internet Society and was most recently employed by telecommunications giant MCI.
ICANN just met and decided on some new top level domain names (TLDS). Currently, TLDS include country names such as .au for Australia and .za for South Africa, and a small number of particular area names such as .com for company, .org for organisation and .net for internet infrastructure companies.
One interesting exception is the TLDS for the small Pacific island country of Tuvalu, which was .tv. The rights for this domain name have been sold to the DotTV Corporation, which has registered some 140,000 names.
Picking which new TLDS should exist is more than just choosing some new extensions. It is designating which organisation will have control over the issuing of names using these extensions. New names are .biz, .info, .name, .pro , .museum, .aero (for aeronautics) and .coop (for cooperative businesses).
First, the proposal has to get the nod from the US government. Under the arrangement between the US government and ICANN, the Department of Commerce decides whether to approve the new names. In a related area of control, ICANN is incorporated in California. Therefore, in future any battle over internet structures that ends up in the courts will find that these are predominantly US courts.
BY GREG HARRIS