America has ever been at an international community’s centre, despite the fact that the Internet has long been it. Yet, that all may be about to shift as the U.S. Department of Commerce scales back its function in Internet governance. The transition is a slow one, but the ending of the year, the DOCTOR anticipated to give up its supervision of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to the international community.

The theory of “Internet governance” may appear to be a weird one as it frequently may seem like the Wild West out there. The most palpable case of ICANN’s impact on Internet governance is direction of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions: When you type a domain name in your browser (e.g. ProxyRental.net), it connects you with the long, multi-digit IP address that would otherwise be impossible to recall.

On its face, it might not look like a big deal who handles this procedure. As long as ProxyRental.net truly gets you to ProxyRental.net , does it certainly matter if it is the U.S., ICANN, or some random man who is behind it? But that question presumes that your URL really gets you to your own destination.

If a foreign government does not need you getting a URL that is particular, why not redirect you into a dead end? After all, naysayers claim, some states have firewalls that are robust, thus give them more control?

The Department of Commerce asserts that by scaling back its function, it’ll be encouraging “initiation and inclusion.” After all, in the event the Internet purportedly belongs to the planet, should not it really belong to the world?

Further, they maintain that it will not relinquish control until safeguards are in place to prevent that from occurring. (Will it live up to that assurance? We’ll see!) At exactly the same time, U.S. direction in this region was called into question — perhaps justifiably — after Snowden’s NSA surveillance leaks. This really is among the factors which has nudged the U.S. toward giving up its contract. Perhaps the international community would do a better job than we’ve.

As unlucky as censorship would be for foreign nations, the larger challenge for the typical American may be managing the domain names the. Over 1,000 generic Top Level Domains (e.g. dot-search, dot-eco, dot-doctors, etc.) are slated to go live in the forthcoming months. It might readily be a concern for corporations to purchase the tens of thousands of domain names associated with their brand. (Picture if amazon.purchase took you to the wrong website.) Obviously, it may be an even bigger hassle for the budding startup, as well as ICANN itself managing this whole procedure with no support of the U.S. government.

The procedure of completely handing over the reins of the Department of Commerce will not be whole until after its contract with ICANN expires in September. Meanwhile, ICANN is slated to start its next round of sessions in Buenos Aires in June. And since it is a multi-stakeholder process, public participation is welcomed.