ICANN summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see ICANN.

ICANN, in full Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Nonprofit private organization incorporated in 1998 and tasked with taking over from the U.S. government various administrative duties associated with running the Internet. ICANN’s functions include overseeing the top-level domains (TLDs; e.g., .com, .net, .org, .edu), registering and maintaining the directory of domain names (e.g., 64.176.36.150) used in the Internet Protocol (IP), and resolving trademark disputes over domain names.

Internet Summary

Internet, a system architecture that has revolutionized mass communication, mass media, and commerce by allowing various computer networks around the world to interconnect. Sometimes referred to as a “network of networks,” the Internet emerged in the United States in the 1970s but did not become