themoneytimes.com | Oct 1, 2009
by Jaspreet
New York, October 1 — As the ongoing agreement between Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration ended Wednesday, ICANN, the net regulator, has finally got the autonomy to run its own affairs.
As the ongoing agreement between Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration ended Wednesday, ICANN, the net regulator, has finally got the autonomy to run its own affairs. Icann will now be reviewed by a larger body, representing foreign governments with specific focus on security, accountability and transparency
ICANN, an organization set up in 1998 by the Clinton administration to regulate the functioning of Internet, has constantly been governed the U.S. government, which has over the years conducted regular reviews of its work.
The U.S. administration has signed a four-page “affirmation of commitments” brief document with ICANN and relaxed control over the functioning of Internet.
The agreement comes exactly 40 years after the underlying technology that makes the Internet run as developed by Department of Defense.
A larger governing body
The net regulator will now be reviewed by a larger body, representing foreign governments with specific focus on security, accountability and transparency.
“We’ve become an organization accountable solely to the Internet community,” ICANN’s Vice President Paul Levins said. “We will have review teams made up of people from all over the globe, not just a government sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue, although they will continue to play a crucial part.”
The agreement has come months after many countries raised objection, saying that the governance setup was improper. Countries like France, China, Libya, Brazil had argued that since majority of the Internet users reside outside U.S., there is a need to set up a multinational body to govern how the Internet works.
Relaxation of strict rules
The move is expected to lead to relaxation of strict rules concerning top-level domain (TLD) name system, using brand names as web addresses, launching domain names in Asian, Arabic or other languages etc.
Further, ICANN is also planning to expand available suffixes to variety of words like dot.football. dot.softdrink, dot.food etc.
This could prove very expensive and unleash a war between suffix owners and infringers in the long run. Many analysts have questioned the implications of creation of unlimited number of global top level domains.
The new agreement states, “Nothing in this document is an expression of support by [the Department of Commerce] of any specific plan or proposal for the implementation of new generic top level domain names or is an expression by DOC of a view that the potential consumer benefits of new gTLDs outweigh the potential costs.”
It’s not completely clear what will the domain expansion implicate, but the recent development is sure to pacify critics who had objected to U.S. dominance in governing ICANN.
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