Taking ownership of the internet

US governments have essentially had command over the web since the 60s, but who will step in once the US shortly cedes control, asks Benny Avni

Turns out, the internet doesn’t run itself.

Until mid-March, a branch of the US government was responsible for such duties as assigning and managing domain names. Suffixes such as ‘.com’ or ‘.org’, which outside of the US also end in country identifiers like ‘.de’ for Germany, or ‘.ie’ for Ireland, are all organised by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is a contractor of an arm of the US department of commerce.