What is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)

‘Intellectual property’ (or ‘IP’) is an umbrella term that is used as shorthand to describe a variety of diverse doctrines that create legally-enforceable monopolies over the use of or access to ideas, information and knowledge. As the Internet is essentially a structure through which such material can be presented, organised, transmitted and disseminated, IP is a key area of law that is used to regulate activity on the Internet. The pervasive significance of this becomes clear when one considers that much of the hardware that forms the framework of computer networks that comprise the Internet, and almost all of the data carried through these networks and linked via the World Wide Web, are—or have been in the past—subject to regulation by IP laws.