ICANN

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:Icann.jpg ICANN (pronounced "I can") is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, ICANN is a California non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. Government by other organizations, notably IANA.

The tasks of ICANN include managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses. To date, much of its work has concerned the introduction of new generic top-level domains. The technical work of ICANN is referred to as the IANA function; the rest of ICANN is mostly about defining policy.

Paul Twomey is the President/CEO of ICANN, since March 27 2003. Vint Cerf is currently Chairman of the ICANN Board of Trustees.

1 ICANN procedures
2 Notable events in ICANN history
3 Arguments about ICANN
4 .com Registry
5 See also
6 External links

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ICANN procedures

ICANN holds its periodic public meetings for the expressed purpose of staying in touch with its membership. Critics note that the locations of these meetings are often in countries with disproportionally small Internet access and far away from locations that the majority of the Internet-using public can afford to reach, thus making public input or participation less likely. Supporters reply that ICANN has a worldwide remit and a key part of its mission is to build Internet use where it is weak.

At present, ICANN is formally organized as a public benefit, non-profit corporation in California. ICANN was set up in California due to the presence of Jon Postel, who was a founder of ICANN and was set to be its first CTO prior to his untimely death. ICANN remains in the same building where Jon Postel worked in the Marina del Rey, California location of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California.

Resolutions of the ICANN Board, preliminary reports and minutes of the meetings are published for the public to view on the ICANN website. But there are criticisms from ICANN constituencies like Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) that there is not enough information freedom ("sunshine") and that too many discussions take place out of sight of the stakeholders or the public. For example, on 2006-03-17 the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) withdrew some financial and organizational support for ICANN [1].

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Notable events in ICANN history

The original mandate for ICANN came from the United States Government, spanning two presidential administrations Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the US Department of Commerce, issued for comment, A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses. The proposed rulemaking, or "Green Paper," was published in the Federal Register on February 20, 1998, providing opportunity for public comment. NTIA received more than 650 comments, as of March 23, 1998, when the comment period closed.

The Green Paper proposed certain actions designed to privatize the management of Internet names and addresses in a manner that allows for the development of robust competition and facilitates global participation in Internet management. The Green Paper proposed for discussion a variety of issues relating to DNS management including private sector creation of a new not-for-profit corporation (the "new corporation") managed by a globally and functionally representative Board of Directors. ICANN was formed in response to this policy. The IANA function currently exists under a remit from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

On March 14, 2002, in a public meeting in Accra, in Ghana, ICANN decided to reduce direct public ("at large") participation.

One of a few publicly elected board members, Karl Auerbach, sued ICANN in Superior Court in California in order to see accounting records. The records were ultimately released to the public in August 2002.

In September and October 2003 ICANN played a crucial role in the conflict over VeriSign and its "wildcard" DNS service Site Finder. After an open letter from ICANN issuing an ultimatum to VeriSign, the company voluntarily shut down the service on October 4 2003. Following this step VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN on February 27 2004, claiming that ICANN had overstepped its authority, seeking through the suit to reduce ambiguity over ICANN's authority. The anti-trust component of Verisign's claim was dismissed in August 2004. VeriSign's broader challenge that ICANN overstepped its contractual rights is currently outstanding, although a proposed settlement would drop VeriSign's challenge to ICANN in exchange for the right to increase pricing on .COM domains.

At the meeting of ICANN in Rome taking place from March 2 to March 6 2004, ICANN agreed to ask approval of the US Department of Commerce for the Waiting List Service of VeriSign.

On 17 May 2004, ICANN published a proposed budget for the year 2004-05. It included proposals to increase the openness and professionalism of its operations, and greatly increased its proposed spending, from US $8.27m to $15.83m. The increase was to be funded by the introduction of new top-level domains, charges to all Domain Registries, and a fee for all domain name registrations, renewals and transfers (initially 20¢ US for all domains within a country-code top-level domain, and 25¢ for all others). The Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR), which represents the Internet registries of 39 countries, has rejected the increase, accusing ICANN of a lack of financial prudence and criticising what it describes as ICANN's "unrealistic political and operational targets". Despite the criticism, the registry agreement for the top-level domains .JOBS and .TRAVEL includes a US $2 fee on every domain the licensed companies sell or renew.

Along with the successful negotiations of the .TRAVEL and .JOBS namespace, .XXX, .MOBI, and .CAT are some of the new applicants in front of ICANN. The recent introduction of the .EU Top Level Domain to the root, and the currently proposed .ASIA multiregional suffix are developments to watch.

In May of 2005, ICANN participated in the Domain Roundtable Conference in Seattle. They are, however, under fire from the United Nations' Working Group on Internet Governance.

The World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in November 2005 agreed not to get involved in the day-to-day and technical operations of ICANN. However it also agreed to set up an international Internet Governance Forum, with a consultative role on the future governance of the internet. ICANN's Government Adivsory Committee or GAC, is currently set up to provide advice to ICANN regarding public policy issues and has participation by many of the world's governments.

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Arguments about ICANN

Some of ICANN's critics would like to see it internationalize itself, meaning that it would be reconstituted as some kind of public sector entity under international law and would cancel its contractual links to the U.S. Government and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which are historical in origin. Of the 15 voting members of the ICANN Board of Directors, it currently has board members from six continents, and has only two US Directors, 1) ICANN Chairman, Vint Cerf, a noted "Father of the Internet" who was appointed by ICANN's Nominating Committee and 2) Michael Palage, a Florida intellectual property attorney who was appointed by ICANN's Generic Name Supporting Organization or GNSO.

Proponents want the United States to maintain the authority it holds via the contract between ICANN and Commerce. This authority stems from the historical role of the United States in creating the Internet. Support from National Top Level Domain Internet registries is a missing critical milestone within the commitments that ICANN has made to the US Department of Commerce.

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