Online Social Movements and Internet Governance

Abstract

The 1999 Seattle demonstrations greatly increased public awareness of the policy-making role of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Another emerging, lesser-known international organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has also been having a growing ineuence. Like the WTO, people often describe ICANN as a neutral body performing technical functions with no policy implications. But ICANN’s technical decisions deenitely have policy implications, most notably in intellectual property rights, where its rules deene the property rights contained in the words used in domain names. Many observers see ICANN as likely to evolve into the Internet’s governing institution. We should examine what is at stake with ICANN: the governance of the most important new communications medium since television; and we should consider the recent mobilization for popular participation in ICANN, and some broader lessons for the use of the Internet by social movements.