ICANN the non profit governing body of the Internet has ended its years old agreement with the US department of Commerce. The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based ICANN towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.
This comes in the wake of a renewed demand especially from Europe for America to accede control of the Internet which has become a global phenomenon since long. It is interesting to note that this is the same point which led to the creation of ICANN in the first place over a decade back. Its objective then was to end the monopoly of America based NSI who held sole control over generic TLDs. If we have tonnes of new domain registrars and competitive domain pricing it is thanks to the establishment of ICANN.
However, ICANN is still a body corporate registered under US laws, and therefore still not global. Which therefore resulted in the rising voices for its ‘independence’ from USA and calls for a more transparent management body for the web. The noises this summer were not the first of its kind, and the demand has been consistently gaining steam since as long as 2005.
With this move however, perhaps the US and ICANN is trying to bring some calm into the waters. It allows a more international ground for ICANN to work in and allows for greater representation beyond the appointed board of directors.
The new deal also reportedly sets up “oversight panels” composed of representatives of foreign governments, which will conduct regular reviews of ICANN in four areas: competition among generic domains (.com, .net. .org, etc); the handling of data on registrants; network security and transparency; and accountability to public interests. The US will only retain a permanent seat in the latter. (Source)
To my mind, this is another farcical move much like what the UN has become now. The Internet istoo big and too important a system for USA to think of relinquishing control. Not much changes in fact in the way ICANN would function except for perhaps an elected board and greater say for regional names in domain registrations. For instance, domain registrations in scripts like Arabic, Chinese, etc. which has been long pending and has a huge market.
The issue addressed essentially is the governance, and I am not quite sure handling the governance to varied governments would be such a good idea on the face of it.
