The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is little known, but it wields a tremendous amount of power: It controls all of the Web’s top-level domains (those letters after the “dot,” like .com and .org). Currently, ICANN is in the midst of creating hundreds (and possibly thousands) of new, generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that span a host of different ideas, from .web to .cars to .anything_else_you_can_imagine. These new gTLDs have the potential to dramatically affect the future of Internet browsing, and they’re already stirring up some serious discussion.

As we gear up for the presidential debates tonight, it’s worth reflecting on the presidential debates from exactly one hundred years ago.

For two years, network neutrality, the nation’s most high-profile and contentious Internet policy conflict has taken a backseat to other debates—privacy investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, cybersecurity orders from the White House, proposed copyright legislation like SOPA and PIPA, software patents in courts, and censorship abroad. After nearly a decade of (rarely productive) debate, net neutrality—restrictions on Internet service providers to ensure consumers experience freedom online—has rarely been in the news since early 2011.

Imagine paying $40 per gallon of gasoline when people in neighboring towns are paying $4. Or paying $8 per kilowatt-hour for electricity when others were paying 8 cents. Unthinkable! But this stark disparity is commonplace when it comes to paying for Internet access in the United States. As the recent report “The Cost of Connectivity” from the New America Foundation (a partner with Slate and Arizona State University in Future Tense) documents, something is fundamentally wrong with our broadband.