Article
Crash Goes ICANN's Multistakeholder Model
American University Intellectual Property Breif
(2020)
Abstract
In 1995, the Internet was becoming a global phenomenon and users needed "domain names"--the street signs of Internet addresses--for an array of commercial and noncommercial speech. A small community of "multistakeholders"--business, civil society, governments, technologists, intellectual property and non-government organization representations--began to write rules for Internet addresses largely on behalf of a global population that had yet to be connected to the Internet. I had the privilege of being part of that group. Since then, Internet use has skyrocketed from 70 million users (1.7% of the world population) in 1995 to over 4.5 billion users (58.8% of the world population) today. Stunningly, today's Internet features over 250 million domain names and 1.5 billion websites.
Keywords
- Cyberlaw,
- Internet law,
- Domain names,
- Intellectual Property IP
Disciplines
Publication Date
February, 2020
Citation Information
Kathryn Kleiman. "Crash Goes ICANN's Multistakeholder Model" American University Intellectual Property Breif Vol. 11 Iss. 1 (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kathryn-kleiman/2/