Law Commons^™

The process of crafting and promulgating technical standards for the internet is often hailed as a prime example of how coordinated activity can take place on a distributed network with little central authority or formal “law.”  Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the internet’s technical standard-setting process rests on a number of highly contingent assumptions, assumptions that do not apply in other areas of internet governance.  This paper explores the limits of this dominant standard-setting approach to internet coordination, using the current controversy over internet domain names as a case study.  Such a case study reveals that existing attempts …