Government Regulation of Dot-Ca Domain Name Space

Abstract

Long gone are the days when the Internet's Domain-Name System could be administered by a few computer and network scientists acting as self-appointed or matter-of-fact trustees of what was then a military research project funded by the U.S. Government. With the Internet becoming a commercialized communications network for the masses, resources and responsibilities for the Internet's key function of naming and addressing servers around the world had to shift from private individuals or university departments to new organisations dedicated to the task of allocating and managing domain names. During this transition the new organisations became more and more aware of the powers they inherited. Naturally, one did not have to wait long for national governments to take a stand on the issues involved. While there seems to exist an abundance of legal opinion in regard to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, the U.S.-based guardian of the Internet's (official) name space, relatively little attention has been paid to the question of regulation by national governments when it comes to "their" country code Top-Level Domains. This article tries to help fill the gap by taking a closer look at the Canadian dot-ca Top-Level Domain-Name and the Canadian Government's current and possibly future regulatory regime. Emphasis is put on answering four key questions: What can be regulated? How can it be regulated? What is the current situation in Canada? And should there be regulation in the first place?

JEL Classification: K10