Washington (AFP) – The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity.
The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet’s so-called “root zone.”
That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet’s “stakeholders” — engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups.
The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to “privatize” the internet, and backers have said it would help maintain its integrity around the world.
US and ICANN officials have said the contract had given Washington a symbolic role as overseer or the internet’s “root zone” where new online domains and addresses are created.
The overseers of the Internet on Monday published a keenly anticipated proposal to step out from under US oversight.
Under the plan, nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would create a separate legal entity that would be contracted to handle key technical functions of the online address system.
A “Customer Standing Committee” would monitor performance of what would essentially be an ICANN subsidiary, and a review process involving stake-holders would be put in place.
ICANN would remain based in Southern California, and any major structural or operational changes to the foundation of the Internet’s addressing system would require approval of the nonprofit organization’s board of directors.
The 199 page proposal was posted online at icann.org, where a note said that a public comment period would end on September 8.
ICANN president Fadi Chehade said last month that the end of the US role is now set for mid-2016, with the transition pushed back by a year to allow time for input from the Internet community and review by the US government and Congress.
ICANN will become an independent entity without US government oversight for the Internet’s domain and address system, Chehade said, noting that the transition is likely to take place between July and September 2016.
A proposed change to the way that registrars treat the private contact details for domain owners could make it easier for anyone to get information on people who use proxy services.
The potential change comes in the form of a document from a working group of the Generic Names Supporting Organization at ICANN, the group that oversees Internet names and numbers. The working group is considering a number of changes to the way that privacy and proxy services operate, are accredited, and handle requests for registrant details from various organizations.
Proxy services are used by individuals and organizations to register domains without disclosing their personal contact details. The services allow registrants who operate sites with sensitive or controversial content, politically motivated content, or who don’t want their details published for various reasons to protect themselves. These services will disclose contact details under some circumstances, such as at the request of a law-enforcement agency. But the ICANN working group is looking at the question of whether commercial sites should be allowed to use these services.
San Francisco (AFP) – The head of the nonprofit group that oversees the world’s Internet addresses expressed confidence Thursday that it would be privatized and out of US government control by year’s end.
Fadi Chehade’s comments came despite criticism in the US Congress, where some lawmakers have resisted the plan to end Washington’s key management role in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Chehade said all the necessary components for a new stewardship scheme are accounted for and there will be “major legitimizing endorsements” from several countries in coming weeks.
“It is now up to the community to wrap them up, put them in a nice little box with a bow and ship them to Washington,” Chehade said, of the pieces of a plan to supplant a contract ICANN has with the US Department of Commerce.
The comments come a year after the US government said it would end its technical oversight role for the Internet domain system, with the stipulation that it be managed without direct control by governments or intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations.
The US plan seeks to turn over this function to what Chehade calls a “global multistakeholder community.”
Chehade said a growing number of countries, including China and Brazil, have voiced support for this new system.
“When we started we heard things like the UN would take over or China will fragment the Internet. Everyone was in threat and defense mode,” he said.
ICANN is in charge of assigning Internet domain names and the numbering codes that lie behind online …
“Now that China has come to the table, and Brazil has done the same, government after government is showing support.”
Chehade said some 150 countries now support the shift of ICANN oversight away from the US government to a globally representative group of governments, civil society and businesses.
“The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet,” By Richard Waters in San Francisco
A meeting in Brazil this week will reveal whether Washington has succeeded in preventing international anger over the Edward Snowden revelations clouding discussions about future governance of the internet.
São Paulo is to host a two-day international meeting, starting on Wednesday, called by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, one of the international leaders who was a target of US surveillance.
International unrest over US and British internet surveillance has weakened Washington’s ability to shape the debate about the internet’s future, according to people involved in the process.
“The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet,” said a former senior US government official.
The São Paulo meeting had the potential to become deeply political and expose rifts between countries over future control of the internet, said Greg Shatan, a partner at law firm Reed Smith in Washington. “It was called under extraordinary circumstances, it’s a reaction to a perceived crisis,” he said.
The US made a highly symbolic gesture last month in an attempt to defuse the situation.
In a move that had long been urged by Brussels, Washington said it planned to give up its last remaining direct role in controlling the internet. This involves checking the accuracy of changes to internet addressing made by ICANN, the international body that oversees the system. Though a limited and highly technical function, this has long been a focus for international discontent at US influence over the internet.
U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet
By Craig Timberg, Published: March 14
U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.
Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.
The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.
“We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,” Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement.
The announcement received a passionate response, with some groups quickly embracing the change and others blasting it.
In a statement, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) called the move “consistent with other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”
But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”
The practical consequences of the decision were harder to immediately discern, especially with the details of the transition not yet clear. Politically, the move could alleviate rising global concerns that the United States essentially controls the Web and takes advantage of its oversight position to help spy on the rest of the world.
