Lessons from ICANN: Is self-regulation of the Internet fundamentally flawed?

Internet regulation is not an ‘all or nothing’ debate. Government regulation dominates the physical layer, but it is fragmented over many legal jurisdictions. Self-regulation dominates the code layer – it is powerful and unique because the code is global, cross-border and pervasive. Government regulation dominates the content layer, but is fragmented over many legal jurisdictions. Policymakers in the dominant legal systems (the EU and the US) have long considered Government regulation and self-regulation to be complementary, instead of mutually exclusive approaches. Internet governance, as it has evolved to date, can best be described as a complex tapestry of Government regulation and selfregulation. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are the principal mechanisms for selfregulation in the code layer. These mechanisms fit awkwardly with MFK-Mendip Job ID: 10053BK-0001-19 1 2 Rev: 16-02-2004 PAGE: 1 TIME: 15:44 SIZE: 60,00 Area: JNLS OP: PB