US keeps control of ICANN until 2009

Stan Beer
Monday, 02 October 2006 21:13

Your IT - Home IT

The US Government has agreed to immediately loosen its control over the organization that has oversight over internet domain names and may set it completely free in 2009.

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A memorandum of understanding between the US Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which runs until September 2009, will free the internet administrator from having to file half-yearly reports to the US Government agency and grant ICANN greater autonomy in forward planning.

While ICANN will still be required to file an annual report, it will not be submitted to the Department of Commerce but the gloabl internet community as a whole.

Contact between the Department of Commerce and ICANN will still take place under the new agreement but they will not be formal reporting sessions.

The European Commission appears to be satisfied that the move towards independence for ICANN is moving in the right direction. However, the final decision to set ICANN free from US Government control will not be made until 2008.

The US has resisted increasing pressure from the rest of the world to loosen its control over the assignment of internet domains and there is no certainty that come 2008, the US Government will voluntarily relinquish complete control of the world's most powerful communications medium.