This essay explores the democratic and legal risks related to the emerging situation of global Internet governance. This situation can be considered as an outcome of the 1997 US Federal Government's policy aims towards privatisation and self-regulation of the technical management of the increasingly global Internet at that time. Thus far there is little empirical knowledge available about the nature and functioning of the various relatively unknown international organisations that are involved in the technical development and management of the Internet. Attention in this respect seems to be exclusively focused on only one of these organisations, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which continues to have a unique relationship with the US Federal Government's Department of Commerce. The empirical question of who actually regulates and manages the Internet infrastructure further rises in importance if we consider that the technical development of the Internet might not be a 'neutral' development but could involve the building in of regulatory norms into the technology.
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