At midnight tonight, the United States will relinquish control over the Internet’s central functions to an internationally-run private entity called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The United States government created this foundation for the Internet in the 1980s when government agencies and contractors created the authoritative “root zone file” and domain name system, which act as the Internet’s master directory and switchboard. Those two building blocks of the Internet have remained under ultimate United States control ever since.