ISC (internet software consortium) is the body that now maintains the list
of usenet newsgroups which conform to the standards agreed regarding naming
conventions (to make it organised and thus speed searching for a group, and
the posts within). Whilst they didn't originally lay down the guidelines,
they are the current holders of the list, and the people who add and remove
groups to it. Generally, the organisations that are involved with the
actual running of the internet will never bend the rules, unless the purpose
is to make the net more efficient, and even then, because people seem to
give up time on a volunteer basis to look after this side of the net for us,
it can be a slow process to actually discuss, evaluate, vote, and then look
at implementing, a change (which, because no one organisation actually has
'control' over what people should do online, can be a very slow and tedious
process, hence the rigorous sticking to the guidelines).

All this is gleaned from searching within google for info on the ISC, so I
might have it a bit wrong. Forgive me if there are innacuracies, I'm not an
expert on this side of the internet at all :-)

Velvet