Another interesting piece of information on states and private actors in the governance of the Internet. One of the more important parts of the Internet’s architecture is the management of domain names, like amazon.com, crookedtimber.org, and the various national top-level domain names (like .uk for Britain, and .ie for Ireland). People who study this sort of thing have a vague sense that domain name allocation is handled by private actors in most parts of the world. “Not so”:http://www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?do=download;id=448 according to a new paper by Michael Geist, who has preliminary results from 66 countries around the world.

bq. The most significant finding of this global survey is that, at least at the national level, governments are currently deeply involved in domain name administration. In fact, contrary to most expectations, virtually every government that responded to the survey either manages, retains direct control, or is contemplating formalizing its relationship with its national ccTLD. This is true even for governments, such as the United States, that generally adopt a free-market approach to Internet matters. Given the near ubiquitous role of government at the national level, it should therefore come as little surprise that governments have begun to seek a similarly influential role at the international level where policy decisions may have a direct impact on their national domains.

Geist’s evidence also suggests that the closer a domain name authority is to the private sector, the less likely it is to be interested in public interest goals, and the more likely its main concern will be flogging off as many domain names as possible. This isn’t exactly surprising, but it does offer food for thought, especially given “Verisign’s push”:http://www.circleid.com/article/538_0_1_0_C/ further to privatize control of the domain name allocation system.