A man walks in front of the WSIS logo.
Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/EPA
The usual perception of the internet is that it is a free-for-all, not subject to any central authority.
But in so far as anyone can be said to be "in control" of the internet, it is a body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a non-profit organisation based in Marina del Rey, California.
Set up in 1998 by the US commerce department, Icann is a sort of gatekeeper of the internet. Icann controls the process for setting internet addresses such as .com, .org and .co.uk. Until then, such activities were performed by a pony-tailed professor in California.
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