On Friday, September 30th of 2016, an obscure contract between the US government and a tech non-profit came to an end. This little company, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), holds the special privilege of managing several key maintenance rolls for the Internet, especially the job of coordinating phonetic website names with their numerical site addresses. ICANN's contract with the US government began 18 years ago, and its recent independence primarily changes the bureaucratic relationship between the two entities - government officials will no longer have approval power over changes made to the aforementioned database. Rather, alterations will now be approved through an international board of stakeholders.
Reactions to this change have spoken volumes about how both politicians and average Americans view the idea of American ownership over the Internet. Despite a US Government Accountability Office report which found there was no legal basis for the idea that ICANN is an American property, hardline conservatives such as Senator Ted Crux (R - Texas) were uncomfortable about the topic. Cruz warned that "when ICANN escapes from government authority, ICANN escapes from having to worry about the First Amendment, from having to worry about protecting your rights or my rights." He went on to allege that world powers unfriendly to American interests might be able to interfere with a free internet, suggesting ICANN might be susceptible to pressures from nations like Iran or China which do not support freedom of speech.
Defenders of the deal have been quick to point out that ICANN does not regulate content on the internet, only the process by which that content is easily accessible via search algorithms. Indeed, ICANN itself responded to Cruz's concerns in an open letter. Within, they explained that "the Internet’s Domain Name System that ICANN coordinates with the support and assistance of many others around the world is a truly global function. As such, it is coordinated on a global basis in order to maintain and assure that there is a single, global, interoperable Internet."
The debate of ICANN's place within or without the US government is really the shadow of a larger debate about the idea of an American internet. As seen in these reactions, the most primary argument for a nationalized internet is that freedom of speech would be strongly protected, while the primary argument against is that the internet is a global tool. Given that ICANN is now independent, we will see if the internet really does come crashing down as conservatives are quick to assert, or if things continue as business as usual for the global community.
