The US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved the global internet multistakeholder community’s proposal to transition the US government’s stewardship role for the Internet domain systems (DNS) technical functions, known as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions.
The announcement marks an important milestone in the US government’s effort to transition the internet’s domain name system and ensure that the internet remains a platform for innovation, economic growth, and free speech. NTIA said the transition proposal must have broad community backing and maintain the openness of the internet. The organisation said it would not accept a plan that replaced its role with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.
For the last 18 years, the United States has worked with businesses, technical experts, governments, and civil society groups to establish a multistakeholder, private-sector led system for the global coordination of the DNS. To accomplish this goal, in 1998, NTIA partnered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to transition technical DNS coordination and management functions to the private sector. In 2014, NTIA initiated the final step in the privatization process by asking ICANN to convene global stakeholders to develop a plan to complete the transition away from NTIA’s remaining legacy role.
n March 2016, ICANN submitted a proposal that addresses both the technical performance of the IANA functions as well as enhancements to ICANN’s accountability. The proposal replaces NTIA’s stewardship for these functions with direct agreements between the operator of the IANA functions and the customers specifying the terms for performance. ICANN has run the IANA functions – which cover the highest level of internet: the DNS, IP addresses, and internet protocols – since the day it was incorporated in 1999, but through a contract awarded repeatedly to it by the NTIA.
The plan moves the contract into ICANN's hands and so removes the US government from its position of direct control – an important change in an ever more global internet. Following the formal approval, the transition is in line to be completed by the end of the current IANA contract – 30 September 2016.
