ICANN and the Overrepresentation of the US

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[Commentary] There are many governments (and apparently L. Gordon Crovitz) that don’t understand how the internet actually operates. They somehow equate the existence of a 20-year-old contract with the US Commerce Department to provide perfunctory administrative oversight to a small number of the internet’s databases to the actual control of the operation and content of the internet. It does not. But this contract has become a powerful symbol to many of a perceived overrepresentation of the US government. Its existence encourages those countries that would like to exert more governmental control over internet content to turn to U.N. agencies to do just that. Continuation of the contract would stifle internet freedom and innovation. Let’s allow this anachronism from the ’90s to expire just as it was always supposed to.

[Holland is President and CEO of Canadian Internet Registration Authority]


ICANN and the Overrepresentation of the US