ICANN’s Chehadé: Snowden disclosures make my job easier

A Q&A with Fadi Chehadé, the president and chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Named to the post in the summer of 2012, Chehadé has seen his tenure marked by drama, from the impact of the Edward Snowden disclosures, to the ending of a US Commerce Department contract for managing part of the Internet's naming system, to a debate over where -- at ICANN? the United Nations? somewhere else? -- decisions about the future of Internet governance should be made. It's a heady time in Internet governance, Chehadé said. "I find myself in a unique point in history where either we will be able to succeed as a human race, almost, in maintaining the Internet as a platform for solidarity and for economic progress, or, frankly, we will fail," he said, "We break it down, and politicize it, and fragment it to the point where it loses the incredible value it has in bringing us together."