Re: But ...
jake is right, but it is also true that today's commercial internet is pretty much under the control of ICANN, because the commercial internet heavily relies on (mostly) shared naming (and, although to a much lesser extent, shared numbering).
While private IP-based networks are possible (and used to be common, and partially still exist today as corporate intranets), only ubergeeks and special interest groups (militaries, terrorist groups?) would really be up for operating a global IP-based network without use of the normal DNS.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
