"The Internet now touches so many places that it's affecting interactions between people and affecting culture in different countries, so of course governments will become interested," he says.

However, he does not see national governments as wishing to dominate decisions made for the Internet in their own national space and this is an encouraging sign, he says.

Rather, they are seeking the right to be a "stakeholder" on equal footing with other constituencies such as technical, academic and private-sector commercial groups and the general population, often described as "civil society".

This is an unaccustomed position for governments, which are used to being "in charge" on their own territory, Cerf says, but they seem to be accommodating to the role, as the price of contributing to a medium so transnational.

The statement by ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) on the proposed .xxx domain, seeking more information and clearer undertakings from its sponsor, showed the ability of governments of many different views to formulate a consensus view to put forward to GAC, Cerf says.