ICANN between technical mandate and political challenges

In October 1998, the "Internet Corporation for the Assigned Numbers and Names" (ICANN), a global non-for-profit private organisation responsible for the governance of the Internet, was established under Californian Law. The new corporation will be fully operational until October 2000. ICANN represents the global public Internet Community as well as the private industry involved in electronic commerce and has the mandate to coordinate and control the technical protocols of the Internet, the Internet address space, the Internet domain name system (DNS) and the Internet root server system. The article describes the first steps ICANN took after its incorporation and the conflicts the Corporation faced when it made technical decisions that had political implications. It discusses also the need for the development of new governance systems in the information age.