The Internet is much like the Matrix; while we sit at work or at home, surfing the Web and checking our email, there are forces at work behind the scenes, making sure that what we?re looking for is indeed what we get. The most influential of these is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the 13 root domain name servers (DNS) which match familiar URLs like http://www.google.com to arcane IP addresses, which are nothing more than series of numbers. ICANN was established as a non-profit organisation in 1998 by the US Department of Commerce (DoC) to provide operational stability for the Internet and to oversee the allocation of generic top level domains (gTLDs) such as .com and .org and country codes such as .in and .uk (ccTLDs).

Rod Beckstrom, president of ICANN, announced on Wednesday that after the end of the Joint Project Agreement between ICANN and DoC, the organisation would move into an independent role with increased representation for international parties. ICANN had previously requested a move to the private sector in 2005, a move which was endorsed by the United Nations, but was rejected by the Bush administration. The MoU between the DoC and ICANN has been replaced with an Affirmation of Commitments which detail ICANN?s way forward, and DoC?s engagement with ICANN?s new international Governmental Advisory Council.

When ICANN was instituted, the US had the largest Internet population in the world. Much has changed since then, and over 40% of the world?s Internet users today live in the Asia-Pacific region, with Europe occupying the second spot. The Internet is unquestionably a global entity, and it is unacceptable that such a large chunk of global commerce and productivity are under US governance. ICANN has also come under attack for lack of transparency and independence, with the accusation that the vested interests of domain registrars and registry services play a larger role in ICANN?s decisions than is good for the health and wellbeing of the Internet and its users. The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) has called for a full-scale audit of ICANN?s operations One high-profile example cited towards US government interference was ICANN?s move to reject the creation of the .xxx TLD for the exclusive use of porn sites at the behest of the Bush administration.

One of the key roles an international ICANN is expected to play is to ensure that the language of the Internet is truly global. This includes the use of international character sets and local language support for various countries not only for content creation, but also for URL formation and in ccTLDs. Beckstrom confirmed that Russian and Chinese character support for ccTLDs would be in place by 2010, provided security issues are resolved. A common domain hack used by spammers and phishing sites is the use of Cyrillic characters that resemble Roman letters in URLs. It would be exciting to watch the Indian-language online ecosystem grow to the extent that users would be able to use the Internet solely in Hindi, Tamil or Gujarati.

There is a concern that the decoupling of ICANN from DoC oversight could result in a glut of TLDs with little significance beyond a handful of industries and companies. gTLDs such as .realty, .cola and .sport could result in huge revenues for domain registrars and for ICANN ($185,000 per TLD), but with little or no value for Internet users, or for the organisations that will now have to spend lots more money to protect their trademarks on the Internet. The US government has had its reservations on this issue, and it is likely that the new Governmental Advisory Council (with representation from DoC as well as other international governments and organisations) that will run ICANN will also ensure that judicious restraint is exercised.

It has also been stated that a global ICANN could make it very easy for governments such as China and North Korea to enforce censorship on the Internet. This is somewhat fallacious, as the steps required to restrict access on the Internet does not change. A set of IP addresses would have to be identified as unacceptable, and then blocked. The technology of censorship is not related to the administration of the TLDs. While China could block ccTLDs of Chinese origin, the rest of the Internet is still subject to the same aforementioned technical processes.

Now that the administration of the Internet is in global hands, it is time for Europeans and Asians to put their hands up and take on the challenge. The Internet is growing more rapidly and in ways hitherto unimaginable. National and political boundaries have become redundant for this entity, and recognition of this fact is crucial to the long-term growth, sustenance and well-being of online communication, information sharing, commerce and creativity.

The author, a digital marketing professional since 2004, is now part of Microsoft Advertising?s India team