Declaring Independence in Cyberspace - Internet Self-Governance and the End of US Control of ICANN

How and why the US government gave up its control of ICANN, the global coordinator of internet names, numbers, and protocols--and what the geopolitical consequences were. In 1997 the U.S. decided that the Internet should be governed not by governments, but by something called the "global Internet community." In Milton Mueller tells the story of why it took 20 years of organizational and geopolitical stuggle to make that happen. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), created in 1998, was the US government's answer to the question of who would control the Internet registries--a key part of the Internet infrastructure supporting domain names, network numbers, IP addresses, and other protocol parameters. Originally, ICANN was a bold institutional innovation based on a vision of Internet governance that was thoroughly globalized and independent of nation-states. The U.S. government refused to let go of ICANN for 15 years, triggering geopolitical conflicts over sovereignty and U.S. power. Mueller details why, what prompted its change of heart, and how the problem of making ICANN accountable to its community in the absence of U.S. government control sparked a political battle in Washington. His account gets to the very heart of a pressing question with profound global implications: Is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or do new technological capabilities change the model?

About the author

Milton L. Mueller is Professor of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he directs the Master of Science program in Cybersecurity Policy. He is the author of seven books and the cofounder of ICANN’s Noncommercial Users Constituency.

Product details

• Authors: Milton L Mueller, Milton L. Mueller, Mueller Milton L.
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.05.2025
• EAN: 9780262552585
• ISBN: 978-0-262-55258-5
• No. of pages: 264
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 227 mm x 19 mm
• Series: Information Policy
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > General, dictionaries; USA, COMPUTERS / Internet / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / General, United States of America, USA, Internet: general works, Central / national / federal government policies, Central government policies, Science Funding & Policy, Science funding and policy