article Related Topics:
ICANN :: ICANN_Reform
 

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.

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 non-profit corporation "for charitable and public purposes" under the California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law. 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 unexpected death. ICANN remains in the same building where Jon Postel worked, which is home to the Marina del Rey, California office 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 *.

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 rule making, 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 May 17 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, .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 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 Advisory 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.

On May 10 2006 ICANN rejected a plan for a new ".xxx" suffix that would have governed websites with pornographic content.

Arguments about ICANN

Some observers would like to see ICANN internationalize itself, meaning that it would be reconstituted as a 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.

To counteract this argument, supports note that 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.

To counteract this argument, opponents note that the ICANN link to the American Government no longer reflects the international nature of the internet.

ICANN was charged with "Operating in a bottom up, consensus driven, democratic manner" by the US Department of Commerce in the Memorandum of Understanding that set up the relationship between ICANN and the US Government. However, the attempts that ICANN made to set up an organizational structure that would allow wide input from the global Internet community did not work well; the At-Large consituency and direct election of board members by the global Internet community were soon abandoned. Critics charge that this constitutes a deliberate closing off of avenues by which the global Internet community could participate in the decision making process, and that the organization has been captured by a few special interests.

One task that ICANN was asked to do was to address the issue of domain name ownership resolution for gTLDs. ICANN's attempt at such a policy was drafted in close cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the result has now become known as the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). This policy basically attempts to provide a mechanism for rapid, cheap and reasonable resolution of domain name conflicts, avoiding the traditional court system for disputes by allowing cases to be brought to one of a set of bodies that arbitrate domain name disputes. According to ICANN policy, a domain registrant MUST agree to be bound by the UDRP - they cannot get a domain name without agreeing to this. A look at the UDRP decision patterns by some experts has led some to the conclusion that the policy is just a way for rich and powerful entities to steal domains from those that are not part of the WIPO organization.

Proponents of a "free" namespace argue that ICANN was never given the right to decide policy (ie: choose new TLDs or shut out other who refuse to pay their $50,000 fee), but was to be a technical caretaker. They claim that ICANN should not be allowed to impose business rules on market participants - all TLDs should be added on a first-come/first-serve basis and the market should be the arbiter of who succeeds and who doesn't.

In addition to that, some critics argue that ICANN is engaging in restraint of free trade by imposing restrictions on who can operate a TLD and sell domain names. The restrictions are considered insurmountable by many small business owners and individuals, such as the $50,000 fee, which for those applicants who have paid it and not been approved, they have yet to receive a refund of that deposit.

.com Registry

Critics claim that ICANN sold out the users of the internet by awarding Verisign a contract for the .com registry and claim prices will go up.[http://news.com.com/Domain+name+price+hikes+come+under+fire/2100-1030_3-6081336.html?tag=nefd.top

See also

External links

Information technology | Internet governance | Domain Name System

ICANN | ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers | ICANN | ICANN | ICANN | Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers | ICANN | 국제 인터넷 주소자원 관리기관 | ICANN | ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers | ICANN | ICANN | ICANN | ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers | ICANN | ICANN | ICANN | 互联网名称与数字地址分配机构

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "ICANN".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world