A Call to End Digital Colonialism

 

A Call to End Digital Colonialism

Re-imagining ICANN as a Shared Steward of the World’s Domain Names

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Abstract

Every web address ends with a tiny label such as “.com”, “.org”, or “.africa”.
The power to issue those labels belongs to a single California-chartered corporation: ICANN.
Public records show that ICANN’s rules, contracts and courts all point in one direction—the United States—and that billions of dollars in annual fees flow to U.S. companies while every major dispute is ultimately settled under U.S. law.
This paper lays out the data, the trends, and seven headline case studies that reveal a pattern of structural partiality. It then traces the civilisational dangers of allowing one nation effectively to tax and police the world’s online identity, a condition I call digital colonialism.

Finally, drawing on the principles of Civitology—distributed power, regulated accountability, ethical integrity, common-good dividends, and a relentless focus on civilisational longevity—I offer a detailed policy blueprint for transforming ICANN into a polycentric Digital Commons Authority capable of rehearsing the habits humanity will need for truly united global governance.

1. The Internet’s Address Book—Who Holds the Pen?

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet’s master phone-book. At the end of 2024 that phone-book listed 156.3 million “.com” names—by far the largest namespace on Earth.(dnib.com)
On 1 September 2024 the wholesale price of every .com registration climbed to US $10.26, the fourth 7 % rise allowed by ICANN since 2020.(domainnamewire.com)
Simple arithmetic—156 million names times US $10.26—yields roughly US $1.6 billion a year to a single company, Verisign, for operating one line in the phone-book.
ICANN itself takes a cut on every domain operation. After fifteen years at US $0.18, the organisation has announced it will return the fee to US $0.20 in July 2025 “to ensure its financial sustainability.”(itp.cdn.icann.org)
The cryptographic keys that secure the root of that phone-book are handled in quarterly ceremonies held only in Culpeper, Virginia, and El Segundo, California—never outside U.S. borders.(mm.icann.org)

When one jurisdiction writes the contracts, houses the root keys, and arbitrates the disputes, the Internet’s “global” addressing system ceases to be global in any meaningful sense.

2. A  Pattern of Partiality—Seven Signals in the Public Record

1 The .COM rent-loop 
ICANN has never opened the .com contract to competitive bidding. Verisign’s monopoly revenues now top US $1.6 billion a year, with all litigation confined to U.S. courts.(domainnamewire.com)

2 The .ORG price-cap removal 
In 2019 ICANN abolished long-standing price ceilings on .org despite thousands of opposing public comments; an Independent Review later ruled the decision violated ICANN’s own bylaws.(namecheap.com)

3 The attempted US $1.1 billion sale of .ORG 
Only a worldwide NGO backlash stopped the Internet Society from selling the .org registry to private-equity firm Ethos Capital in 2020; the deal was not blocked by ICANN’s internal safeguards.(eff.org)

4 The secretive .WEB auction 
A shell company bank-rolled by Verisign bid US $135 million for .web; after years of complaints ICANN’s board declared “no rules were broken.”(domainnamewire.com)

5 The .AFRICA decade-long lawsuit 
An African non-profit fought for the .africa string for ten years—entirely in Los Angeles—because ICANN’s bylaws mandate California jurisdiction for all registry disputes.(icann.org)

6 The .AMAZON decision 
Eight Amazon-basin nations opposed turning “.amazon” into an e-commerce brand; after seven years ICANN awarded the domain to Amazon Inc.(businessinsider.com)

7 UDRP imbalance 
WIPO handled nearly 6,200 domain complaints in 2023—80 % involving .com—and notes that “transfer remains the dominant outcome,” leaving most registrants in the Global South out-lawyered and out-spent.(wipo.int)

Different stories, same compass: each needle swings toward U.S. corporate or legal advantage.

3. The Mechanics and Dangers of Digital Colonialism

• Wealth extraction. Annual registration fees flow from every economy into a narrow U.S. revenue stream, widening the digital divide.

• Sovereignty dilution. Any state challenging a registry decision must appear before a Californian judge, ceding judicial autonomy.

• Single-point failure. Two bunkers on one coast store the keys that validate the entire root zone, a tempting fault-line in times of political tension or cyber war.

• Censorship leverage. In crisis, a small circle could delete or throttle whole namespaces, silencing regions overnight.

• Dangerous precedent. Normalising single-state control here sets the stage for the same pattern in quantum trust anchors, satellite constellations, or AI-model registries.

Under Civitology’s Utility-vs-Collective-Danger Test, the status quo fails: it secures short-term profit at the cost of long-term planetary risk.

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4 Civitology’s Design Principles for Shared Infrastructure

1. Distributed Power No actor—state or corporate—retains a permanent veto.

2. Regulated Accountability Budgets, contracts, and votes are auditable; governors face term limits and recall.

3. Commons Dividend A fixed share of every fee funds civilisation-extending projects such as digital literacy and cybersecurity in low-income regions.

4. Ethical Integrity Office-holders must pass a public Righteousness Quotient and lose their seat upon verified breach—an operating mirror of meritodemocracy.

5. Longevity Focus Every policy must lengthen, never shorten, humanity’s safe horizon.

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5. Policy Blueprint: The Digital Commons Authority (DCA)

Polycentric Charter
Incorporate the DCA simultaneously on at least five continents. No by-law changes without five-way consent, preventing any single host state from seizing control.

Tripartite Governance
One-third digital-citizen delegates elected online with open-source, one-person-one-vote tools; one-third state delegates on rotating, non-permanent seats; one-third merit seats for technologists, ethicists, and civil-society leaders who renew their mandate yearly through public RQ scoring.

Transparent Contract Cycles
Re-tender every registry, including .com and .org, every five years. All bids and economic models published in raw, machine-readable form before approval. Wholesale price increases capped at cost + CPI + commons levy.

Global Domain Dividend
Redirect 25 % of every wholesale fee into a public-ledger “Commons Wallet” to finance connectivity, cybersecurity and pro-bono censorship defence where it is needed most.

Distributed Root Stewardship
Move the DNSSEC key to a multi-signature scheme across hardware vaults on five continents; forbid any country from hosting more than one-quarter of the root-server instances.

Rapid Ethics Tribunal
A livestreamed panel delivers binding rulings on abusive price hikes, censorship or contract breaches within 30 days, ensuring fast redress without resort to any single nation’s courts.

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6 Transition Roadmap

• Year 0-1 A global digital convention drafts and signs the DCA charter.

• Year 1-3 Dual custody of the root key (ICANN + DCA) while performance metrics are met.

• Year 3-5 First commons-dividend disbursements; legacy TLDs migrate as their contracts expire.

• Year 7 Independent audit of financial impact, resilience metrics, and RQ compliance; charter amendments if needed.

No reliance on the UN, IMF or World Bank—bodies already viewed as partial. The DCA is purpose-built for planetary fairness in the digital layer.

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7. From Digital Commons to Planetary Governance

Re-designing the DNS is low-risk—no armies, no nuclear silos—and high-impact because every transaction, scientific paper and human conversation now begins with a domain lookup.
A successful DCA becomes a live rehearsal for the power-sharing humanity must master to manage carbon budgets, bio-risk and orbital debris. If we cannot share “.com”, we will not share a fragile planet.

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Conclusion

ICANN’s U.S.-centric design is not a neutral historical accident; it is a lingering artefact of 1990s policy that today extracts wealth, distorts justice and stores global risk inside a single jurisdiction. The public data, the money flows and the lived cases make the verdict plain: the Internet’s naming layer is under digital colonial rule.

Civitology offers an exit. By converting ICANN into a polycentric Digital Commons Authority, we can end the hidden tax on the world’s online identity, fortify the Internet’s resilience, and practise, in the safety of cyberspace, the habits of just and united global governance.

The moment to de-colonise the DNS—and to rehearse a fairer future—has arrived.

Annexure – Documentary Sources and Data Referred to in this Paper

(Every link is given in full so it can be copied directly into a browser. All pages were last accessed in June 2025.)

A. Core Market and Pricing Data

1. Wholesale price of “.com” (US $10.26 effective 1 Sept 2024)
   
   https://www.dynu.com/en-GB/Blog/Article?Article=Verisign-increases-dot-com-domain-price-on-september-1-2024

2. Verisign domain count and registry-level revenues (Verisign 10-K & DNIB)
   (Most recent DNIB landing page)
   https://www.verisign.com/en_US/domain-names/dnib/index.xhtml

3. ICANN per-domain transaction fee (US $0.18 returning to US $0.20)
   https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registrar-fees-2018-08-10-en

B. Root-Zone Custody and Ceremony Locations

4. Official description of Root Key-Signing ceremonies in Culpeper (VA) and El Segundo (CA)
   https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/root-key-signing-key-ceremony-postponed-12-2-2020-en

5. General ceremony schedule and documentation archive
   https://www.iana.org/dnssec/ceremonies

C. “.org” Contract and Governance Controversies

6. ICANN decision (July 2019) lifting long-standing .org price caps
   https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/29/icann_slammed_org_price/

7. Namecheap v. ICANN litigation over .org price-cap removal (ongoing)
   https://domainincite.com/30474-namecheap-scores-win-in-org-price-cap-lawsuit

8. ICANN rejection of Ethos Capital’s US $1.1 billion bid for “.org” (April 2020)
   https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/victory-icann-rejects-org-sale-private-equity-firm-ethos-capital

D. “.web” Auction and Verisign Involvement

9. Verisign statement after ICANN confirmed the Nu Dot Co / “.web” outcome
   https://investor.verisign.com/news-releases/news-release-details/verisign-statement-regarding-icanns-decision-web

E. “.africa” Sovereignty Litigation

10. DotConnectAfrica Trust v ICANN – case archive and key pleadings
    https://dotconnectafrica.com/media/communications/dca-trust-v-icann/

F. “.amazon” Decision Against Eight Amazon-Basin States

11. ICANN Board resolution (15 May 2019) allowing processing of the .AMAZON applications
    https://www.icann.org/en/board-activities-and-meetings/materials/approved-resolutions-special-meeting-of-the-icann-board-15-05-2019-en

12. ICANN status update confirming next steps for delegating “.amazon” (December 2019)
    https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/status-update-on-amazon-applications-the-next-steps-19-12-2019-en

G. UDRP / WIPO Dispute-Resolution Statistics

13. WIPO caseload overview (record ~6 200 complaints in 2023; 80 % .com)
    https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/caseload.html

14. Detailed 2023 outcomes PDF (82 % transfers; <5 % denials)
    https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/docs/wipo-domain-name-cases-statistics-2023.pdf

15. Live statistical dashboard for year-by-year UDRP filings
    https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/statistics/

H. Supplementary Context and Analysis

16. Independent commentary on .com wholesale increases and contract structure
    https://www.dynu.com/fr-FR/Blog/Article?Article=Verisign-increases-dot-com-domain-price-on-september-1-2024

17. Technical backgrounder on ICANN’s fee-based funding model (ICANN FY 24–25 documents)
    https://www.icann.org/public-comments/draft-opplan-budget-fy24-25-2023-12-15-en

I. Primary ICANN Agreements (for reference)

18. “.com” Registry Agreement – Amendment 35 (January 2020)
    https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/amendment-3-to-the-com-registry-agreement-27-01-2020-en

19. “.org” Registry Agreement (2019 renewal that removed price caps)
    https://www.icann.org/resources/agreement/org-2019-06-30-en