Those who’ve followed the Internet’s history knows that its management has always been, at best, troubled. At worst, it’s been downright controversial. Recent moves by the Bush administration and Congress have attempted to derail an international effort to put management of the world’s largest network in the hands of people who represent more than a small fraction of the world. The consequences of this could range from further erosion of the US’s foreign influence to network fragmentation to a major blow to the Bush administration’s credibility and authority.

Back in the Good Old Days, the Internet (and the ARPANet before it) were basically run by one man: Jon Postel. He defined many of the protocols we still use today, including the TCP and IP networking protocols, and the SMTP mail protocol.

He also created and ran IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority by himself for many years. IANA was, until September 1998, the sole agency responsible for assigning IP address ranges. IP addresses are how computers identify each other on the Internet, and route messages to their appropriate destinations. So, in an even stronger sense than the DNS services, IANA was responsible for keeping the whole thing running smoothly.

The DNS root zone, the top-level servers responsible for deciding who’s allowed to assign what domain names, was not directly controlled by Postel, but by the US Department of Commerce. When his health failed, ultimately leading to his death in October 1998, the Department of Commerce used this authority to turn control of the IANA over to ICANN. Theoretically an open, democratic non-profit at it’s time of founding, ICANN quickly changed. Their initial board was relatively evenly split between community and industry representation. The industry representatives assumed that the community representatives would passively follow their dictates, and not ask any inconvenient questions about finances.

This wasn’t the case. One member in particular, Karl Auerbach, was very insistent that he be allowed to exercise the privileges the organization’s charter afforded to him. He had to sue ICANN in California court to get access to financial records, and a small handful were finally released in August 2002. ICANN responded by eliminating the “at large” representatives, and severely curtailing the roles of the remaining community representatives.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. In 2004, ICANN introduced proposals that included doubling the organization’s spending. Many national domain registrars objected to the proposal. Among other things, they voiced strong opposition to the “Internet tax” being raised by ICANN on all domain name transactions – creation, alteration, and transfer, among others. Originally proposed as $0.25, with a mandatory $0.20 tax for country-code domains, ICANN has made noises about raising it as high as $2. (For new, recently-introduced top-level domains) Also tabled recently was a proposal to transform ICANN into a private body, accountable to no-one save those that fund it. Namely, the US government and an elite club of American corporations.

Matters came to a head recently, when the US DoC declared that it would retain control of the root servers even after its contract with ICANN expired in 2006. While they claim that individual national governments will always be allowed to administer their own domains, it places control over recognition of said national governments squarely in the hands of the United States. This claim was made in response to a request for administration of the servers to be turned over to a neutral UN-governed body.

Just this Friday, a congressional resolution supporting the DoC’s policy was introduced by two Republicans and everyone’s favourite Democrat, Rick “douche-bag” Boucher. The logic put forth in defence of their position is simply absurd. The “excessive bureaucracy” of a UN-based solution is a centrepiece of their reasoning, yet it’s hard to see how one could have a bureaucracy more excessive than that established by ICANN, the DoC, and VeriSign in the years since Postel’s death. And as for repressive regimes curtailing free expression online… Guess what? It’s already happening.

American companies – Microsoft, Google, and Cisco among them – are building custom software and hardware for the “great Firewall of China”, the software and hardware that allow the Chinese government to control what travels across the country’s network links. And, more importantly, to allow the government to track who’s doing what. Similar pieces of technology are being developed and sold to other repressive regimes around the world, again by American corporations. Never mind the increasingly corporate-friendly policies of ICANN, which threaten to stifle innovation and free exchange of information in the name of protecting the profits of the “content cartel”.

So, what are the possible outcomes of this situation?

If neither the rest of the world nor the Bush administration back down, we could see a “network split”. Network links going in to and out of the United States could be cut, and the Internet divided in two: one Internet for America, one for everyone else. It’s easy to see who comes out the loser in this scenario, especially since it’s primarily American corporations that have been seeking to cripple the Internet to protect their profits.

Another possibility is that the rest of the world will back down and go along with the Bush administration’s policies. This would also be damaging, as it would result in increased resentment towards America, further eroding the nation’s influence.

Finally, the Bush administration could be forced to back down by the threat of a network split. This would be utterly devastating for the Bush administration. Not only would a very public initiative have failed, but control of ICANN and the DNS root servers would likely land in the hands of a UN body. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate on how this would go over with Bush’s base.