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Icann, you can, we can

By Julian Goldsmith

Published: Friday 30 June 2000

Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is one of the most powerful organisations in the new economy.

Responsible for assigning top level domain names, it has the potential to resolve intellectual property and copyright disputes, the bane of a thriving online economy. Crucially for an emerging industry keen to limit government control, it is also a model of self-regulation.

But for all its benefits, Icann is a flawed organisation.

According to civil rights activists it is over-populated by commercial organisations and under-represented geographically. Last October, Icann responded to the latter criticism by dumping three US committee members and replacing them with representatives from Mexico, Spain and Canada. But that still meant five out of 13 committee members were from the United States - hardly a global body for the world wide web. All this leaves it open to the charge of being 'undemocratic'.

Fortunately, Icann itself recognises these flaws and is encouraging all internet users to sign up to vote in forthcoming elections. The elections for the new committee are due in September, but reports indicate the cut-off for registration is the 20 July.

So if you want a say in who manages our internet, log on to http://www.icann.org today...