Editor’s Note: For additional information on why the US should not relinquish control over ICANN, see here and here.
From: Information Week
US Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) says we must still address questions about accountability and transparency to ensure an open, secure, stable Internet.
The FCC recently received more than 3.7 million comments on its proposed rules to govern how Internet providers will treat traffic on their networks. However, there’s another pivotal discussion happening that could turn out to have an even bigger impact on how the Internet will be governed. Much of it boils down to how the international Internet community will oversee web addresses and domain names and how well it will protect the principles of a secure, stable, and open Internet.
ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is at the heart of this question, as well as the Internet’s architecture. ICANN is currently overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the US Department of Commerce. ICANN’s charge is to manage the domain name system (DNS) and make sure that, when you type in www.senate.gov, you’re actually routed to www.senate.gov.
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