Domain names (and other unique naming attempts)

Very few internationally coordinated (non-state run) unique naming attempts have been noted so far in the digital world. These offer informative examples of the requirement for individualisation and the, ultimately unavoidable, need for state involvement. The first is the registration of domain names (themselves digital-born information, see §01.01.17). In the early days of the Internet this task was undertaken by private parties, centrally at first (in the US) and then allocated per country to the rest of the world. Soon enough, however, states took over either directly (domain names in the vast majority of national cases are managed through regulation) or indirectly (by appointing state agencies to control the relevant activity). Other attempts to uniquely and authoritatively identify individuals in the digital world have been made on an as-needed basis, for example, in the cases of celebrities or researchers. In both these cases increased use of the digital world by such categories of individuals means that their digital identity needs to be officially warranted. Tellingly, while private online platforms have taken over this task, what they do in practice is use the analogue-world information of the persons concerned to ‘lock’ an online profile to them.

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