Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers Research Articles

The reform of the Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers (ICANN): an analysis of its legitimacy

espanolLa ICANN es una corporacion constituida, de conformidad con el Derecho estadounidense, para garantizar el funcionamiento estable y seguro del sistema mundial de identificadores unicos de Internet: los parametros de protocolo, los recursos numericos y la gestion de la Zona Raiz del Sistema de Nombres de Dominio. Desde su creacion, esta corporacion ha sido ampliamente criticada por su deficit de legitimidad que justifica la necesidad de proceder a su reforma. El disenso politico-institucional y la apariencia de neutralidad de la gobernanza tecnologica han propiciado una solucion unilateral a ese problema en la medida en que Estados Unidos ha controlado su desarrollo y sus resultados. Esa reforma se ha realizado siguiendo el modelo multistakeholder y se ha materializado principalmente en los Estatutos que establecen el modelo institucional y el sistema de responsabilidad de la ICANN. El primero muestra serias disfunciones en su organizacion, naturaleza, interacciones y funcionamiento. Por su parte, el modelo de responsabilidad se ha construido principalmente a traves de un procedimiento que no garantiza realmente un control independiente y externo. A pesar de la reforma, la crisis de legitimidad de la ICANN no se ha resuelto satisfactoriamente. EnglishICANN is a corporation created in accordance with US law and aimed to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems. Since its creation, this corporation has been widely criticized for its lack of legitimacy. This problem justifies the need to reform it. Both political-institutional dissent and the appearance of neutrality of technological governance have led to a unilateral solution to this problem to the extent that the United States has controlled its development and results. This reform has been carried out following the multistakeholder model. The new Bylaws modifies the ICANN institutional model and also the accountability system. But the first shows serious organic and functional problems, while the second has been built mainly through one procedure that does not really guarantee independent and external control. Despite the reform, ICANN’s legitimacy crisis has not been yet resolved satisfactorily.

A Jurisprudential Approach to Governments and Other Actors Attempts to Control the Internet Root Zone

In today’s world, no treaty regulates the Internet. Moreover, no international court has ruled over the Internet infrastructure. Despite this situation, governments (on behalf of their nation-states) and government bodies have tried to assert sovereignty over the Internet and stop or compromise the transmission of the Internet packets. Although the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet has been successful of keeping the Internet from a single point of control, many scholars and non-scholars have suggested the application of the rules of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over the Internet. The purpose of these claims is solving controversies when multiple jurisdictions are involved (Barcomb, 2013; Kalpokienė & Kalpokas, 2012; Schmidt, 2017; Steven, 2001). However, as previous research suggests the application of the UNCLOS rules is also a call to apply the Westphalian model of sovereignty over the Internet (Vargas-Leon, 2017; Vargas Leon & Badiei, 2017). The application of the rules of UNCLOS into the Internet Root Zone is an example of governments’ traditional practice to exercise their jurisdiction beyond their territorial borders. This practice is characterized by the “coexistence” of spaces where nation-states keep for themselves different levels of sovereignty. Similarly to the rules of UNCLOS over the territorial sea and the high sea, when it comes to the application of sovereignty rules into the Internet realm, governments developed the following practices: (1) leave spaces where no sovereignty claims exist (at least theoretically), like the Root Zone itself, (2) exercise some level of sovereignty over some of the elements of the Root Zone, such as the country-code-top-level-domains (ccTLDs) and (3) leave spaces where their jurisdiction is exclusive, like in the delegation of the ccTLDs (Vargas Leon & Badiei, 2017). By using a multiple case study approach including the Iranian registry case and the .Amazon and .Africa controversies, this paper is an attempt to analyze, from a jurisprudential point of view, how the coexistence of different levels of jurisdiction exist within the Internet realm and how different actors, like individuals, court systems and government bodies get involved. As we should remember each one of the proposed case studies represents a scenario where the involved actors attempted to control some elements of the Internet Root Zone. The case Ben Haim vs. the Islamic Republic of Iran was an attempt of U.S. terrorist victims to seize control of the .ir Internet domain name, which is also Iran’s national country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) (Rabkin, 2014). The case .Amazon pits U.S. Amazon against the government of Brazil and Peru. Although the final decision belongs to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) (formed only by governments) backed Peru and Brazil claim (Segal, 2017). Finally the case .Africa controversy involves DotConnectAfrica (DCA) vs. ICANN; in this case, a Los Angeles court refused a preliminary injunction that prevents ICANN from adding .Africa to the Internet (McCarthy, 2017). This paper is an attempt to answer the following questions: What are the governments and governments’ organizations legal arguments to justify extending nation-states’ sovereignty into the Internet Root Zone? What are the non-governmental actors arguments use to try to control the Internet Root Zone? With this purpose in mind, our aim in this paper is to illustrate how the classic arguments governments used in the international domain affect the Internet Root Zone and the Internet infrastructure. Alongside with governments’ claims, we will attempt to look at the arguments non-governmental actors have used for the same purpose. Finally, we want to clarify that this paper does not advocate for any governance model for the root zone. Findings expect to explain the diverse legal opinions this matter has generated in the legal field and how they can influence the Internet governance debate.

Language rights and international domain names

ABSTRACTThis research examines how international domain names (IDNs) have become a proxy solution to multilingualism and language rights on the internet. In 2009, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the initiation of fully internationalised top-level domain names. In this paper, I introduce the process of initiating IDNs, and map out their technological standards and solutions in the praxis of internet governance. Then, I discuss the key players and participants in the initiation of IDNs in relation to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition of 2016 and the expiring control of the U.S. government over ICANN. Finally, I discuss the relatively new language rights paradigm, which is gaining ground in cyberspace, coupled with the increasing norm of multilingualism.

ICANN: Transformation of Approach towards Internet Governance

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is one of the world's prior organizations governing the Internet. Since its establishement in 1998 it faced criticism concerning the lack of legitimacy and accountability. ICANN was also challenged because of the ongoing tight relationship with the US government, which was not considered to be acceptable by the rest of the world. The article focuses on the development of ICANN and its approach towards the criticism. It elaborates on the sector-specific issues regarding Internet governance. And finally it informs the reader about the process of transformation of ICANN, which severed the link between the US government and ICANN.

The New .Africa Top Level Domain: An African Initiative in Ensuring Africa's Rightful Place on the Global Network

The new gTLD programme of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the single most important development since the privatisation of the DNS in 1998. The management of the Domain Name System (DNS) has developed from a modest undertaking to its current explosive expansion through the new gTLD programme. Africa has boldly entered the arena through the delegation of the .Africa gTLD.
 This new development heralds an innovative era in the management of the DNS, especially for Africa. The dotAfrica gTLD launch strategy offers several advantages to African governments and traders alike. One of the innovative features of the management of dotAfrica is the fact that a broader set of rights including commercial, cultural, linguistic, religious and personal rights will be protected. Furthermore, African trade mark proprietors and other rights holders are protected, initially at least, by various innovative rights-protection mechanisms. This development is important for African governments and it should form an integral part of right holders' intellectual property management strategy.

Crowdsourcing Internet Governance: The Case of ICANN's Strategy Panel on Multistakeholder Innovation

Internet governance issues are diverse in scope and transnational in scale, making issue awareness and consensus building among relevant stakeholders a logistical leviathan. Historically, the identification and resolution of internet governance issues have remained within the purview of technical bodies (lead primarily by the private sector) and governments. Lack of centralized control over the internet created a situation where no single player has ultimate jurisdiction over the technical and political regulation of the web. This shift in power has resulted in creation of a range of multistakeholder forums to promote both discourse among various actors about internet governance issues and potential solutions, as well as binding decision-making. On the one end of the spectrum are non-binding organizations, such the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Established in 2006, the IGF seeks to encourage deliberation about internet governance that embodies “international cooperation, collaboration, and implementation” among diverse stakeholders, albeit without binding or prescriptive outcomes (Napoli, 2008, p. 3).1 On the other end of the spectrum are organizations that produce concrete binding rules and regulations, such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Founded in 1998, in response to the growing complexity and escalating international criticism of informal, US-centric mechanisms for the management of internet names and number, ICANN remains one of the primary internet governance organizations, and also one that seeks to rely on multistakeholder processes (Mueller, 2002).

Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy

Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy

A View from the Cheap Seats: Internet and Colonialism

Facebook launched Free Basics in India in 2015, an initiative promoting free mobile access to some applications and services in the country. A few months later, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) banned this and other zero rating programs after a public consultation that instigated intense opinions. Soon after the ban, Facebook board member and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen wrote on his Twitter: Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?. This paper reacts to Andreessen question by trying to identify, through the lens of postcolonial criticism, relations of power, domination and exploration in the environment. Thus, it describes how the West may deploy an Internet model for the global periphery promoting a new form of colonialism: the one. The paper is organized in three sections. First, it introduces what is meant by digital colonialism. Second, the paper focus on two topics that might serve as an example of a colonialism revisited: access barriers and governance models. Specifically, it emphasizes the establishment of Western programs of free Internet access designed to serve poor countries, focusing on Facebook's Free Basics establishment in India. It also addresses centralized Western policies, analyzing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Finally, the paper encourages further development on the matter.

Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy

Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy

Why Domestic Enforcement of Private Regulation Is (Not) the Answer: Making and Questioning the Case of Corporate Social Responsibility Codes

Why Domestic Enforcement of Private Regulation Is (Not) the Answer:Making and Questioning the Case of Corporate Social Responsibility Codes Anna Beckers and Mark T. Kawakami I. Global Private Regulation and the Domestic State Globalization has been commonly understood as a phenomenon that leads to the dissolution of territorial borders and the growing interdependence of social and economic activities that remain spatially remote.1 The law, in this regard, has not been spared from the impacts of globalization either. There is a constant interest in grasping the evolving legal system under the effects of globalization in terms such as transnational law,2 global law without3 or beyond4 the state, global legal pluralism,5 or transnational regulation.6 Certainly, much can be gained from a conceptualization of global ordering structures as autonomous global law that function independently of the state legal system. [End Page 1] Nevertheless, the enthusiasm for the effective functioning of these global ordering structures has recently waned. In particular, private regulatory processes have experienced various instances of functional ineffectiveness at the global level.7 Moreover, these private regulatory processes may face serious problems in terms of legitimacy and accountability,8 which, in turn, provide a justification to reconsider the role of domestic legal systems. In this context, it is equally important to note that the state and its formal legal system have never been irrelevant for global legal processes. To the contrary, the functions of domestic courts and legislators remain significant and relevant—as much as the global processes—and should continue to be so. The true global "delocalized" law has rightly been labeled as a utopia.9 Against this background emerges the question of whether domestic legal systems can and should play a role in administering and enforcing these global rules against private actors. In other words, is a stronger regulatory role of domestic law an appropriate response to the risks associated with the processes of economic globalization? In response, legal research seems to have already initiated a change in focus from the characteristics of this transnational ordering to investigating the interaction of global rules with state legal systems.10 One important element in this discussion is the renewed focus on the [End Page 2] enforcement of global private regulation through private law. Shifting the attention from the less tangible social pressures to legal enforcement, scholars have identified a variety of substantive areas in which the legal enforcement of private regulation could play a role,11 such as advertising and food safety,12 labor standards,13 and financial markets.14 In that respect, it is also normatively postulated that the national legal and political systems should play a more significant role in order to reinforce the potential rather than undermining the regulatory efforts on a global scale.15 This issue aims to contribute to this debate by providing different perspectives on whether and how domestic enforcement of transnational private regulation through private law can and should be furthered, if at all. This is accomplished by narrowing the broader topic and focusing on the investigation of one particular area: the starting point of all the contributions will be the debate over private corporate social responsibility (CSR) codes and the case for or against their enforcement under domestic private law. These CSR codes are understood as codes of conduct developed and published by transnational corporations to show their globally applicable commitment to respect human rights, improve fundamental labor standards, protect the natural environment, and prevent corruption. [End Page 3] The focus on private corporate social responsibility initiatives seems, for that debate, a particularly suitable example: First, unlike in other forms of private self-regulation, domestic enforcement is critical for corporate social responsibility because separate enforcement institutions have not evolved on a global level. In relation to the lex mercatoria, arbitral tribunals are primarily called upon to provide for juridification. For private internet governance, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has evolved as a core player. The Court of Arbitration (CAS) has been dominant in shaping and enforcing the lex sportiva. Similar international courts or private arbitral institutions, although recently considered,16 have not been realized for corporate social responsibility...

The problem of future users: how constructing the DNS shaped internet governance

Before the emergence of bodies like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), early network designers learned how to govern the in their work building the Domain Name System (DNS). Using original archival research, this article follows conversations among network designers in their daily struggle to keep the Advanced Research Project Agency Network (ARPANET) and early in working order. Drawing from social constructivism and path dependence theory, this history helps to conceive internet governance beyond its institutional focus, considering how the work of ordering the necessarily exceeds the parameters of authorities.

The Internet in “Their” Language: South Korea and the Internationalizing Web

Abstract For most of the World Wide Web's history, Web developers and users have been restricted to the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) to create and access websites by title/Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Over roughly the last fifteen years, an international group of hardware and software experts, coordinated in part by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has created a workaround that allows for top-level Web domain names to be writable and readable in character sets other than ASCII, including Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, and Greek. But rather than prompting a discrete switch from one dominant language (English) to many, this development has prompted increasing linguistic complexity as internationalized sites include both English and more regional/local languages to fulfill rhetorical purposes. This article extends earlier research on Web internationalization and multilingualism by focusing on South Korea, which is simultaneously highly Internet connected and highly monolingual. Genre and linguistic analysis of three websites in Korean domains reveals language contact across “content” and “functional” areas in website layouts. Analysis suggests ongoing work across computing devices as well as research using diverse methodologies.

Proteus online

Scholarship on digital identity has historically reflected a Protean discourse, framing arguments in terms of fluidity and constraint. After explicating the Protean discourse that has framed critical approaches to digital identity, this article exposes how the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in order to justify its centralized authority of the Domain Name System, itself mobilizes a Protean discourse, representing digital identity as a finite supply of water in need of proper management. From its formation in 1998 until 2009, when the US Department of Commerce effectively released the corporation from its official supervision, ICANN assembled a regime for the management of digital identity, which is itself an infrastructure for a global identity industry. By adopting an infrastructural disposition, this article situates global Internet governance in relation to the academic corpus on digital identity, interrogating the discursive conditions by which we have come to understand ourselves in relation to the Internet’s most basic addressing schema, the enclosures within which all virtual communities congregate.

The Impact of the New gTLD Program on the Internet Governance Regimes of Emerging Economies - China's Domain Name Regulation Revolution

The diverse community of hosts, users, and networks relies on the Domain Name System (DNS) to locate Internet services and devices worldwide. This system performs the function of mapping user friendly host names to machine readable Internet Protocol (IP) addresses which are used by computers to identify each other and thereby make data transfers possible. According to the distributed structure of the name space, the DNS is administrated hierarchically by multi-organizations with each administrator exercising control over lower level domains. To be specific, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private non-profit organization contracted with the US government, is operating the top of the DNS hierarchy — the root zone. According to the contract, ICANN is authorized to develop policies for regulating the root zone and tracking Top Level Domains (TLD), the subordinate level of name space beneath the root in hierarchy. Likewise, the administrator of TLD is charged with responsibility for developing policies for second level domain name allocation and maintaining domain name services.

Governing The Internet

This essay explores why the United States is relinquishing an important source of power over the Internet, and what this means for both users of the Internet and scholars of global governance. The Internet began as a niche tool of engineers and academics, funded by the Department of Defense. Governance was loosely exercised by an insular group of enthusiasts and experts. By the 1990s, as the Internet grew rapidly, control was asserted more directly by the US government. Significant power was delegated to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California non-profit. In June 2016, the Obama administration approved ICANN’s proposal for independent management of the critical “naming and numbering” function of the Internet. ICANN — governed by a complex multistakeholder structure that incorporates many non state actors — will directly control what is essentially the address book of the Internet. By delegating more autonomy to ICANN, the US will strengthen multistakeholderism, not just for ICANN, but as a broader principle of global governance. The Internet has been, over the past two decades, a central site of struggle between multistakeholderism and multilateralism. By relinquishing its role as primus inter pares among states, the US seemingly will lose an important source of power over the Internet. And yet even as its power is diminished, the achievement of its preferences will be strengthened. This somewhat paradoxical story has important lessons not only for the exercise of state power over the Internet but also for the evolution of global governance in a time when increasing numbers of nonstate actors across a range of international issues have achieved substantial participatory roles.

Power and Multistakeholderism: The ICANN Experiment

Functioning under the political oversight of the US government, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considered today as one of the most powerful private corporations in the world. It is an agreed-upon thesis in the literature on ICANN that the corporation derives its potential power from a combination of technical and political factors1 (see Mueller, 2002; Friedlander and Cooper, 2000; Froomkin, 2000; Kleinwachter, 2000; Weinberg, 2000; Holitscher, 1999; Post, 1999a, b). First, ICANN was delegated policymaking authority over the single-root Internet Domain Name System (DNS), which translated into the right to decide how many and which top-level domains would be authorized, and who would benefit from the intense user demand for registration services in the most lucrative top-level domains. And, second, ICANN enjoys the unfading US Department of Commerce’s (DoC) support, which culminated, in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) debate (2003 - 2005), in sustaining the US unilateral control over ICANN2. This paper focuses on the rationalities and practices of policy-making for the Internet DNS as they emerged in the late 1990s and up to 2002, when ICANN was reformed. In this sense, it is an exercise in unraveling “the history of the present” (Michel Foucault).

Introduction to the Special Issue: Gendering Global Media Policy: Critical Perspectives on “Digital Agendas”

Introduction to the Special Issue: Gendering Global Media Policy: Critical Perspectives on “Digital Agendas”

THE MODEL FOR A PATH FORWARD. A PROPOSAL FOR A MODEL LAW DEALING WITH CYBER-SQUATTING AND OTHER ABUSIVE DOMAIN NAME PRACTICES

The internet has revolutionized the way we interact with information and each other. Among the internet’s many applications, e-commerce ranks at the top. Businesses derive significant value from a robust online presence which arguably begins with a strong domain name.Websites are identified by internet protocol (IP) addresses which consist of sets of numbers. The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet’s address book. Its function is to allow internet users to identify websites with more memorable indicia than a set of numbers such as words, phrases and acronyms. Given that businesses often devote significant resources to growing brand recognition and the goodwill associated with their trademarks, many of them tend to register domain names under those trademarks. Domain names (unlike trademarks) are unique which further increases a trademark holder’s interest in securing ones that consumers would likely associate with its goods or services.Cyber-squatters seek to profit from the DNS by engaging in a form of “online speculation”. They register domain names that are either identical or confusingly similar to trademarks and then attempt to sell the domain name(s) to a legitimate trademark holder for a profit.The current regulatory framework dealing with cyber-squatting comprises of: 1) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and variants thereof; 2) The American Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA); and 3) National trademark laws. This paper argues that while partially effective, the current framework is lacking.A review of UDRP panel statistics reveals a steady flow of complaints since 2000 with a marked upswing from 2005 forward. The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, the largest UDRP resolution provider, receives between 1700-2600 complaints per year relating to cyber-squatting. Cyber-squatting is therefore clearly an issue that requires further or better regulation.The UDRP, ACPA and trademark statutes all suffer from significant shortcomings. This paper seeks to identify those shortcomings and propose a potential solution: a model law relating to cyber-squatting and other abusive domain name practices. The model law would create specific causes of action for cybersquatting and the abusive practice known as “reverse-domain name hijacking”. It would also comport certain key provisions to aid in the harmonization of an internationally accepted body of “domain name law”.While a model law approach itself suffers from certain shortcomings (most notably the requirement that it be adopted in a significant number of states to become effective), this paper demonstrates that those shortcomings are far outweighed by its benefits.

Controlling Internet Infrastructure: The 'IANA Transition' and ICANN Accountability, Part II

In Part 1 of this series on Controlling Internet Infrastructure, we described the “IANA transition,” the U.S. government’s plan to relinquish its special oversight role in connection with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) by terminating the contract pursuant to which ICANN has been managing the Internet’s “domain name system” since 1999. The goal of the IANA transition is to eliminate the contractual lever through which the U.S. government has exercised regulation, oversight, and control over ICANN’s DNS management activities since ICANN was formed in 1998. No element of the transition plan is more important than the design of effective “accountability” mechanisms, and the U.S. government should not proceed with the transition unless and until it has satisfactory answers in hand. In this paper, we employ the tools of constitutional analysis to come up with an effective accountability structure and discuss their application in practice. A constitutional solution for ICANN involves, at a minimum, the following four elements: 1. A clear and precise delineation between the powers that the corporation may, and those that it may not, exercise. 2. A division of the institution’s powers so that they are not concentrated in one set of hands. 3. Internal, institutional mechanism(s) to enforce the constraints of (1) and (2). 4. Transparency and simplicity. We then apply these principles to ICANN’s current structure and proposed changes that will occur as a result of the IANA transition. The goal of this paper is to articulate a clear vision for the design of a new suite of checks and constraints, which we believe is a precondition to the IANA transition and the elimination of the U.S. government’s contractual oversight role in the domain name system.

The Neverending ccTLD Story

Country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are the two-letter suffixes used by countries to denote their Internet addresses. Examples include .fr (for France), .tv (for Tuvalu) and .uk (for the United Kingdom). When ccTLDs were first developed, ccTLD policymaking was not high on the international lawmaking agenda. However, as the Internet explodes and as countries begin to realize the potential of this key information infrastructure, ccTLDs have received significant attention from the international community. Added to the ccTLD policymaking debate is the creation and development of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities. This book chapter recounts the power struggle over the control of the Domain Name System and authority to delegate and administer ccTLDs. It traces how ccTLD policymaking has been transformed from ad hoc, informal coordination to international, contract-based governance. It also discusses the various major players in the ccTLD debate: ICANN, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), ccTLD managers, national governments, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).