Mason Cole

The Internet governance debate is devouring headlines, and has been for months as governments seek to expand their roles -- for various reasons -- in overseeing the domain name system (DNS). Meanwhile, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the technical coordinating body for the DNS, is furiously working to maintain its historic role as the caretaker of such an important resource. And Congress, on occasion, raises its hand and weighs in on any number of subjects, from Whois usage down to specific approaching new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

The steps we take now and in the coming months and years to level that playing field, and provide a real and competitive landscape, without the heavy hand of over-regulation will go a long way toward determining the success of the program and fulfilling its promise to the market.

It’s therefore essential that ICANN not only understand the danger of over-regulating the very program it created to foster innovation, but that it help governments and others understand the dangers of doing so. Artificial constraint, arbitrary rules, last-minute changes, misunderstandings of the market -- all of these will endanger the success of the gTLD program and other innovations to follow.