How does ICANN control the internet?

Question

I read in a military strategic discussion forum that ceding control of the internet to ICANN was a mistake. How does ICANN control the internet?

In: 25

Answer 1

ICANN controls the phonebook. When you try to go to [reddit.com](https://reddit.com) your computer has to lookup the IP address of the reddit server. So your computer go to a known server that acts as a phonebook and converts [reddit.com](https://reddit.com) to [151.101.193.140](https://151.101.193.140). ICANN could divert reddit to another server like the one for [google.com](https://google.com).

The power is that the phonebook can push traffic wherever, even to servers that look exactly like what they should be but are controlled by someone else. Or shutdown traffic to servers if desired.