Currently the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has a contract from the U.S. government to maintain the Internet infrastructure, but the U.S. government wants to hand that responsibility off to a nongovernmental body that will have international representation.

CNN: Groups protest ICANN plans

Part of this role involves overseeing the work of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana), which does the technical work required to maintain the net's address books.

BBC: Net body Icann pledges to be more open

However, the formality of the power structure was thrown into stark relief when the US government under George W Bush intervened directly on the subject of .xxx domain names, and then moved responsibility for certain naming from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana) to Icann.

BBC: Technology