Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace (Paperback)

Description:

In Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller uses the theoretical framework of institutional economics to analyze the global policy and governance problems created by the assignment of Internet domain names and addresses. "The root" is the top of the domain name hierarchy and the Internet address space. It is the only point of centralized control in what is otherwise a distributed and voluntaristic network of networks. Both domain names and IP numbers are valuable resources, and their assignment on a coordinated basis is essential to the technical operation of the Internet. Mueller explains how control of the root is being leveraged to control the Internet itself in such key areas as trademark and copyright protection, surveillance of users, content regulation, and regulation of the domain name supply industry.

Control of the root originally resided in an informally organized technical elite comprised mostly of American computer scientists. As the Internet became commercialized and domain name registration became a profitable business, a six-year struggle over property rights and the control of the root broke out among Internet technologists, business and intellectual property interests, international organizations, national governments, and advocates of individual rights. By the late 1990s, it was apparent that only a new international institution could resolve conflicts among the factions in the domain name wars. Mueller recounts the fascinating process that led to the formation of a new international regime around ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In the process, he shows how the vaunted freedom and openness of the Internet is being diminished by the institutionalization of the root.

Milton L. Mueller is Associate Professor, Director of the Convergence Center, and Director of the Graduate Program in Telecommunications and Network Management at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University.

Table of Contents:

1	Introduction: The Problem of the Root	1
I	The Root as Resource
2	The Basic Political Economy of Identifiers	15
3	The Internet Name and Address Spaces	31
4	The Root and Institutional Change: Analytical Framework	57
II	The Story of the Root
5	Growing the Root	73
6	Appropriating the Root: Property Rights Conflicts	105
7	The Root in Play	141
8	Institutionalizing the Root: The Formation of ICANN	163
9	The New Regime	185
III	Issues and Themes
10	ICANN as Global Regulatory Regime	211
11	Global Rights to Names	227
12	Property Rights and Institutional Change: Some Musings on Theory	255
13	The Taming of the Net	265
	Selected Acronyms	269
	Notes	273
	References	303
	Index	311