In this interesting article in Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Neil Cukier sums up the coming battle over domain name registration.

Foreign critics think a shift to multilateral intergovernmental control would mark a step toward enlightened global democracy; Washington thinks it would constitute a step back in time, toward state-regulated telecommunications. Whether and how these perspectives are bridged will determine the future of a global resource that nearly all of us have come to take for granted.

If even that seems a bit dry, Mr Cukier waxes poetic in this paper from 2002:

The domain name system is the vital on-ramp for Internet usage, from publishing a Web site to receiving email and could easily be turned to control Internet activities as fundamental as going online. Revoking a domain name in the networked age is the equivalent of social banishment, political exile, excommunication. It is a digital solitary confinement, akin to slicing off one's tongue, ears and eyes -- as well as mind, for access to network resources will someday be more than a matter of communications, but a complimentary component of mental activity. A form of existence.