The latter question has been discussed here. There is no complete answer but my opinion is that they will be able to conspire with Google, Facebook and other like-minded companies to allow more censorship by anyone who wants to censor. For example let's say a school wants to censor, for good reasons. Currently they use cyber patrol or a dozen other products. Those log everything, analyze content, filter on content or names, blacklist names, and do man-in-the-middle to break HTTPS privacy.
That's bad enough and it takes a pretty smart kid to get around them, until the product blocks that avenue. The problem with turning over ICANN is that it will allow them to blacklist entire swaths of internet names. I call it balkanization although I'm not sure that is an accurate description. It will regularize stuff like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSBL which creates openings for censors. Censorship will always just be damage that gets routed around, but it will require more and more workarounds making everything messy and complex. The biggest problem with international control over naming IMO is that they can open the namespace wide open and blackmail legitimate names into buying endless synonymous names. Also will give power to google, Facebook and others to collude for the same reason (money).
What’s clear to me, is if this happens the Internet will as you say “balkanize” if not nationalize! Large sections of it will become tightly controlled if not for government tolls, custom duties and other forms of taxation as well as to control information flow for internal security purposes. It’s already happening to some extent in China. This will accelerate it and encourage such behavior to spread.
This deliberately introduced “inefficiency” changes the economics of business Internet use, damage e-commerce, etc.
It’s not surprising that the Internet giants such as Google, Amazon are good with this. They in typical monopolist fashion think ‘ We now have the “market” let’s close it off to any competition. We have the cash reserves and market control to handle any government regulation that’s imposed on the “business” ‘!
The days of the “Internet-Hacker Cowboy” are at end, brought on them by the left wing politicos - elitists they insisted on supporting.
Thank you for the helpful answer, Palmer, I appreciate it. Hoping we can nail this down with the new administration and shut down any attempts to diminish our freedoms.