Open AccessINTERDEPENDENCE AND NETWORK OVERSIGHT IN 1990S INTERNET GOVERNANCE
Author(s) -
Meghan Grosse
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.11926
Subject(s) - internet governance , the internet , corporate governance , government (linguistics) , political science , monopolistic competition , corporation , public administration , domain name system , public relations , law , business , economics , finance , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , world wide web , computer science , monopoly
In October 2016, the contract between the United States Department ofCommerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) officiallyexpired. This contract represented a long-standing and close relationship between the UnitedStates government and ICANN, a relationship that positioned the U.S. as a kind of linchpinin determining the shape and coordination of the global, extraterritorial internet. Thisresearch seeks to address the question: what interests and values shaped ICANN at the timeof its establishment and in what ways do debates about this system reflect broader concernsabout the U.S.-centric nature of early internet governance policy? I address this questionusing archival analysis focusing on the Ira Magaziner Electronic Commerce papers at theClinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. In examining this archive, there arerepeated concerns about the U.S.-centric nature of early internet governance policy,concerns that were clear as early as the mid-1990s and which remained at issue with theoversight of ICANN until 2016. While espousing the values of competitive free-market, theinternet governance policy promoted by the U.S. government during the Clinton Administrationraised concerns about the concentration of power and potentially monopolistic control of thenetwork by a single nation. Understanding the foundations of debates around oversight andmultistakeholderism that took place as early as the 1990s helps us better understand morerecent changes in internet governance and also help contextualize and ground discussionsabout how to best create a truly representative global internet in the future.