The public lines drawn in this dispute suggest it is a struggle between free-market forces in California and multilateralist world leaders chafing at U.S. control over the mushrooming Internet.

But the reality is more complex

Domain names (such as "www.ips.org") are the unique identifiers needed to route e-mail, find pages on the World Wide Web, and connect to other Internet resources.

Soon after the "Net" was born, the need to enforce uniqueness, to prevent two people from attempting to use the exact same domain, created the need for a body to monitor and assign the names.

While the Internet was small, the DNS and the Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation was run by a combination of volunteers, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. government civilian and military contractors.

That quickly changed

"The Internet's exponential growth placed strains on the somewhat ad hoc system for managing the DNS, and what had been primarily technical issues became political, legal and economic problems that attracted high-level official attention," according to the website of ICANNwatch.org, a watchdog group that publishes ICANN-related news.

Now ICANN, the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, allocates IP address space and manages the domain name system. It also helps set technical rules for how the Internet operates.

Whoever controls the DNS has significant power, including the ability to decide what new families of domain names can exist - new suffixes like .union, for example - and how names and essential routing numbers will be assigned.

As attractive domain names using .com became scarce, disputes over them became increasingly common, and pressure mounted for the creation of new suffixes like .shop or .web.

"Although technically trivial to implement, the proposals ran into intense counter-pressure from intellectual property rights holders who already faced mounting problems with cybers quatters speculators who registered domain names corresponding to trademarks and held them for profit," explains ICANNwatch.org.

Governments in the European Union (EU) began to express concern about the United States' influence over such a crucial component of the mushrooming technology.

Five years ago, in response to a U.S. Department of Commerce initiative, the non-profit quasi-private organisation ICANN came into being.

One of its early moves was to push Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), the dominant registrar of domain names, to allow more competition, including America Online, CORE, France Telecom, Melbourne IT, and register.com. ICANN also instituted mandatory arbitration of trademark claims, meaning everyone who registered a .com, .org or .net domain had to agree to arbitration if a trademark owner felt aggrieved by the registration of a term similar to his or her trademark.

That move was very contentious, with trademark holders arguing that arbitration did not go far enough to protect their assets, while civil liberty groups countered that the system violated basic norms of due process, and that the arbitrators were not acting fairly.

Others complained that ICANN's board of directors - although it includes non-U.S. members - was not representative enough.

In 2001, the body identified seven new top-level domains (TLDs), including.info and .biz, but declined to recommend 35 others. The selection process was controversial, and the losing applicants protested. According to ICANNwatch.org, the problem with the domains system is its lack of accountability.

"In addition to avoiding governmental accountability mechanisms, ICANN lacks much of the accountability normally found in corporations and in nonprofits," such as competition and shareholder monitoring.

In an inteview with CircleID.com, ICANNwatch.org editor Milton Mueller, argues that, "so much of what happened in the ICANN arena happened by default, because no one had a better proposal that significant groups had converged on and understood the implications of".

As the Internet grew, competitors and governments took a keener interest in the work of ICANN, which faced increased pressure as the business of selling domain names collapsed and ICANN proved inept at performing some of its tasks.

The most visible quarrel broke out between ICANN and VeriSign, which operates the .com and .net databases (and earns 6 dollars a year per address registered). In September, VeriSign launched a service that redirected users who mistyped a .com or .net address to its own search engine, on which it sold advertising.

This caused problems, as it fooled certain filters designed to weed out Internet junk, or "spam", into assuming that some junk e-mail was genuine. ICANN threatened to sue, and VeriSign withdrew the service.

The initiative signalled how the market for Internet addresses had changed. VeriSignwith a market share of 25 percentneeds new sources of income, since selling names and operating the registrar is not as profitable as it once was.

VeriSign's challenge also revealed the extent to which ICANN's authority is in doubt.

During a September preparatory meeting for the WSIS, some countriesincluding China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabiabacked a proposal that the United Nations-affiliated International Telecommunication Union (ITU) take charge of ICANN's responsibilities.

The ITU said it could not comment for this article, because as a U.N. agency it cannot speak on behalf of member states.

A well-informed source, who did not want to be identified, argued that the question is not whether ICANN can be replaced by the ITU, but whether some portions of ICANN's responsibilities can be better managed.

If the ITU did take over some of ICANN's role, it would not deal with disputes over domain names or the VeriSign case, for example. "They're not part of ITU's mandate," the source said. The first issue is a "national matter", the second a commercial affair.

But the ITU could get involved in issues that touch on international policy and standards, added the source.

"I don't like governments, but why should I trust the ICANN? What's the alternative? ICANN could've been the alternative, but they don't have a representative board. They are a classic example of an oligarchy, an old-boy network that is not accountable to anybody."

"ITU is more accountable in numerous ways," he added. "The member states have to agree, there are regulations about who does what, the decision process is transparent, there are strong formal procedures."

Last month South African President Thabo Mbeki said the WSIS should discuss ICANN's powers, "otherwise the world continues to be governed by California law". The suggestion came soon after South Africa country took legal control of its country domain, .za, without seeking ICANN approval.

Supporters of such a plan include China or Saudi Arabia, hardly freedom of expression champions. But "content control has nothing to do with ITU," said the source.

In any case "the countries won't ever agree on such a thing unless by some miracle", he predicted.

Mueller sees the proposal differently. "In WSIS, they ask for making ICANN into an intergovernmental organization so that states can control it, and presumably kick civil society out of all serious deliberations, as they do in WSIS."

"It is also worth emphasizing strongly that simple jealousy of U.S. dominance is no substitute for a coherent policy regarding governance. The issue is the distribution of power, not nationality," added Mueller.

"An Internet governance system dominated by the EU or China or Brazil might make Europeans, Chinese or Brazilians happier (or would it?) but it would hardly be more just," added Mueller.

Observers say three blocs have emerged in the dispute: the first group sees ITU as ICANN's successor; the EU believes that ICANN is not ideal but could be improved; while the United States is happy with the current arrangement. The source predicts that the divide over ICANN could degenerate into bitter discussions that could leave the WSIS without an agreement, "like Cancun".

The risks of such an outcome are unknown. In the past, the debate over how to run the Internet has focussed on the risk that too much government regulation might hinder innovation. But after the VeriSign case, unrestrained commercialisation looks as big a danger.

Links: ICANNWatch ICANN International Telecommunication Union