Back in the late '90s, when I was starting out as a high-tech reporter, the Clinton administration released what would become the that would transfer management of the Domain Name System (DNS) from the U.S. government -- and, I would argue, academia -- to an independent non-profit organization. That entity eventually was named the , or ICANN.

was to preserve operational stability of the Internet, promote competition, achieve broad representation of the global Internet communities, and develop policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based process.

That affected every business that used a website, of course --- and that meant just about every company, everywhere. Gradually, the Internet homepage became a familiar face for the company, far more than, say, the annual report cover.

At the time, the formalizing of the domain process was judged necessary by the Department of Commerce -- in part, precisely because of the impact domains were having on business. Suddenly, corporations wanted to protect their brands, and it was difficult to do so with ad-hoc administration of the DNS. What made covering this era so engrossing was the struggle between those in the public sector and academia that had safeguarded the Internet for years and the corporate/legal entities that swept in to influence ICANN.

Today, the interests of an open, global Internet with corporate branding. The organization recently announced it would add to the pot of 22 generic top-level domains, such as ".com," ".net" and ".edu." Those generic top-level domains are known by the acronym gTLD.