ICANN

thumb|right|ICANN headquarters in the [[Playa Vista, Los Angeles|Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.]]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States, responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, while also ensuring the Internet's smooth, secure, and stable operation.

Much of its work has concerned the Internet's global Domain Name System (DNS), including policy development for internationalization of the DNS, introduction of new generic top-level domains (TLDs), and the operation of root name servers; the numbering facilities ICANN manages include the Internet Protocol (IP) address spaces for IPv4 and v6 in addition to the assignment of address blocks to regional Internet registries (RIRs).

ICANN's primary principles of operation have been described as helping preserve the operational stability of the Internet, promoting competition, achieving broad representation of the global Internet community, and developing policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

ICANN was officially incorporated in the state of California on September 30, 1998, with entrepreneur and philanthropist Esther Dyson as founding chairwoman. In 1997 Postel testified before Congress that this had come about as a "side task" to this research work. The Information Sciences Institute was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, as was SRI International's Network Information Center, which also performed some assigned name functions.

As the Internet grew and expanded globally, the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated a process to establish a new organization to perform the IANA functions. On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. 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 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. ICANN managed the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) under contract to the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) and pursuant to an agreement with the IETF.

ICANN is a public-benefit nonprofit corporation "organized under the California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for charitable and public purposes." ICANN was established in California due to the presence of Postel, who was a founder of ICANN and was set to be its first Chief Technology Officer prior to his unexpected death. ICANN formerly operated from the same Marina del Rey building where Postel formerly worked, which is home to an office of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. However, ICANN's headquarters is now located in the nearby Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Per its original by-laws, primary responsibility for policy formation in ICANN was to be delegated to three supporting organizations (Address Supporting Organization, Domain Name Supporting Organization, and Protocol Supporting Organization), each of which was to develop and recommend substantive policies and procedures for the management of the addresses within their respective scope. They were also required to be financially independent from ICANN. As expected, the RIRs and IETF agreed to serve as the Address Supporting Organization and Protocol Supporting Organization respectively, and ICANN issued a call for interested parties to propose the structure and composition of the Domain Name Supporting Organization. In March 1999, the ICANN Board, based in part on the DNSO proposals received, decided instead on an alternate construction for the DNSO which delineated specific constituencies bodies within ICANN itself, thus adding primary responsibility for DNS policy development to ICANN's existing duties of oversight and coordination.

On July 26, 2006, the United States government renewed the contract with ICANN for performance of the IANA function for an additional one to five years. but did not remove it from DOC oversight and control. The Affirmation of Commitments, which aimed to create international oversight, ran into criticism.

On March 10, 2016, ICANN and the DOC signed a historic, culminating agreement to finally remove ICANN and IANA from the control and oversight of the DOC. On October 1, 2016, ICANN was freed from U.S. government oversight.

Since its creation, ICANN has been the subject of criticism and controversy. In 2000, professor Michael Froomkin of the University of Miami School of Law argued that ICANN's relationship with the U.S. Department of Commerce is illegal, in violation of either the Constitution or federal statutes. On June 10, 2024, it was announced that Kurt Erik Lindqvist, who has been CEO of the London Internet Exchange since 2019, was to become the new president and CEO of ICANN on December 5, 2024.

Notable events

On March 18, 2002, publicly elected At-Large Representative for North America board member Karl Auerbach sued ICANN in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California, to gain access to ICANN's accounting records without restriction. Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled in Auerbach's favor on July 29, 2002. The increase was to be funded by the introduction of new top-level domains, charges to domain registries, and a fee for some domain name registrations, renewals and transfers (initially US$0.20 for all domains within a country-code top-level domain, and US$0.25 for all others). The Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR), which represents the RIRs of 39 countries, rejected the increase, accusing ICANN of a lack of financial prudence and criticizing what it describes as ICANN's "unrealistic political and operational targets". Despite the criticism, the registry agreement for the top-level domains and includes a US$2 fee on every domain the licensed companies sell or renew.

Following the 2013 NSA spying scandal, ICANN endorsed the Montevideo Statement, although no direct connection between these could be proven.

On October 1, 2016, ICANN ended its contract with the United States Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (<abbr>NTIA</abbr>) and entered the private sector.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (active since May 25, 2018) has had an impact on ICANN's operations, which had to be fixed via some last minute changes.

Structure

From its founding to the present, ICANN has been formally organized as a nonprofit corporation "for charitable and public purposes" under the California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law. It is managed by a 16-member board of directors composed of eight members selected by a nominating committee on which all the constituencies of ICANN are represented; six representatives of its Supporting Organizations, sub-groups that deal with specific sections of the policies under ICANN's purview; an at-large seat filled by an at-large organization; and the president / CEO, appointed by the board.

There are currently three supporting organizations: the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) which deals with policy making on generic top-level domains (gTLDs); the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) deals with policy making on country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs); the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) deals with policy making on IP addresses.

ICANN also relies on some advisory committees and other advisory mechanisms to receive advice on the interests and needs of stakeholders that do not directly participate in the Supporting Organizations. These include the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which is composed of representatives of a large number of national governments from all over the world; the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), which is composed of individual Internet users from around the world selected by each of the Regional At-Large Organizations (RALO) and Nominating Committee; the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC), which provides advice on the operation of the DNS root server system; the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), which is composed of Internet experts who study security issues pertaining to ICANN's mandate; and the Technical Liaison Group (TLG), which is composed of representatives of other international technical organizations that focus, at least in part, on the Internet.

Governmental Advisory Committee

upright=1.35|thumb|Governmental Advisory Committee representatives

Representatives

The Governmental Advisory Committee has representatives from 179 states and 38 Observer organizations, including the Holy See, Cook Islands, Niue, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Montserrat, the European Commission and the African Union Commission.

Observers

In addition the following organizations are GAC Observers:

African Telecommunications Union
Asia-Pacific Telecommunity
Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU)
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO)
Council of Europe
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
European Broadcasting Union
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
European Space Agency
International Labour Office
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL)
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Latin American Association of Telecom Regulatory Agencies (REGULATEL)
League of Arab States
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organization for Islamic Cooperation
Organization of American States
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)
Pacific Islands Forum
Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)
Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL)
International Criminal Court
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Universal Postal Union
World Bank
World Health Organization (WHO)
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
World Meteorological Organization
World Trade Organization

Trusted Community Representatives

As the operator of the IANA domain name functions, ICANN is responsible for the DNSSEC management of the root zone. While day-to-day operations are managed by ICANN and Verisign, the trust is rooted in a group of Trusted Community Representatives. The members of this group must not be affiliated with ICANN, but are instead members of the broader DNS community, volunteering to become a Trusted Community Representative. The role of the representatives are primarily to take part in regular key ceremonies at a physical location, organized by ICANN, and to safeguard the key materials in between.

Democratic input

In the memorandum of understanding that set up the relationship between ICANN and the U.S. government, ICANN was given a mandate requiring that it operate "in a bottom-up, consensus-driven, democratic manner." However, the attempts that ICANN has made to establish an organizational structure that would allow wide input from the global Internet community did not produce results amenable to the current Board. As a result, the At-Large constituency and direct election of board members by the global Internet community were soon abandoned. and the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) that there is not enough public disclosure and that too many discussions and decisions take place out of sight of the public.

During the early 2000s, there had been speculation that the United Nations might assume control of ICANN,

Activities

Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)

One task that ICANN was asked to do was to address the issue of domain name ownership resolution for generic top-level domains (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 essentially 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, domain registrants must agree to be bound by the UDRP—they cannot get a domain name without agreeing to this.

Examination of the UDRP decision patterns has caused some ICANN's list of permissible purposes includes domain name research, domain name sale and purchase, regulatory enforcement, personal data protection, legal actions, and abuse mitigation. Whois has been a key tool of investigative journalists interested in determining who was disseminating information on the Internet. The use of whois by journalists is not included in the list of permissible purposes in the initial report.

Proposals for reform

Proposals have been made to internationalize ICANN's monitoring responsibilities (currently the responsibility of the US), to transform it into an international organization (under international law), and to "establish an intergovernmental mechanism enabling governments, on an equal footing, to carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet".

IBSA proposal (2011)

One controversial proposal, resulting from a September 2011 summit between India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA), sought to move Internet governance into a "UN Committee on Internet-Related Policy" (UN-CIRP). The action was a reaction to a perception that the principles of the 2005 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society had not been met; the statement proposed the creation of a new political organization operating as a component of the United Nations to provide policy recommendations for the consideration of technical organizations such as ICANN and international bodies such as the ITU. Subsequent to public criticism, India backed away from the proposal.

Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation (2013)

On October 7, 2013, the Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation was released by the managers of a number of organizations involved in coordinating the Internet's global technical infrastructure, loosely known as the "I*" (or "I-star") group. Among other things, the statement "expressed strong concern over the undermining of the trust and confidence of Internet users globally due to recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance" and "called for accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing". This desire to reduce United States association with the internet is considered a reaction to the ongoing NSA surveillance scandal. The statement was signed by the managers of the ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Society, and the five regional Internet address registries (African Network Information Center, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, Latin America and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry, and Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre).

Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (2013)

During October 2013, Fadi Chehadé, former president and CEO of ICANN, met with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in Brasilia. Upon Chehadé's invitation, the two announced that Brazil would host an international summit on Internet governance during April 2014. The announcement came after the 2013 disclosures of mass surveillance by the U.S. government, and Rousseff's speech at the opening session of the 2013 United Nations General Assembly, where she strongly criticized the American surveillance program as a "breach of international law". The "Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NET mundial)" will include representatives of government, industry, civil society, and academia. At the IGF VIII meeting in Bali in October 2013 a commenter noted that Brazil intends the meeting to be a "summit" in the sense that it will be high level with decision-making authority. The organizers of the "NET mundial" meeting decided that an online forum called "/1net", set up by the I* group, will be a major conduit of non-governmental input into the three committees preparing for the meeting in April.

The Obama administration, which had joined critics of ICANN in 2011, announced in March 2014 that they intended to transition away from oversight of the IANA functions contract. The current contract that the United States Department of Commerce has with ICANN expired in 2015, in its place the NTIA will transition oversight of the IANA functions to the 'global multistakeholder community'.

NetMundial Initiative (2014)

The NetMundial Initiative is a plan for international governance of the Internet that was first proposed at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (GMMFIG) conference (April 23–24, 2014)

and later developed into the NetMundial Initiative by ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé along with representatives of the World Economic Forum (WEF)

and the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil), commonly referred to as "CGI.br".

The meeting produced a nonbinding statement in favor of consensus-based decision-making. It represented a compromise and did not harshly condemn mass surveillance or support net neutrality, despite initial endorsement for the latter from Brazil; the final resolution states that ICANN should be controlled internationally by September 2015.

A minority of governments, including Russia, China, Iran, and India, were unhappy with the final resolution and wanted multilateral management for the Internet (such as a UN-based model), rather than broader multistakeholder management.

A month later, the Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms (convened by the ICANN and WEF with assistance from The Annenberg Foundation), endorsed and included the NetMundial statement in its own report.

During June 2014, France vehemently lambasted ICANN, saying they are an unfit venue for Internet governance, and that alternatives should be sought.

TLD expansion and concerns about specific top-level domains

During 2011, seventy-nine companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and others, signed a petition against ICANN's new TLD program (sometimes referred to as a "commercial landgrab"), in a group organized by the Association of National Advertisers. As of September 2014, this group, the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, that opposes the rollout of ICANN's TLD expansion program, has been joined by 102 associations and 79 major companies. Partly as a response to this criticism, ICANN initiated an effort to protect trademarks in domain name registrations, which eventually culminated in the establishment of the Trademark Clearinghouse.

.sucks domain

ICANN has received more than $60 million from gTLD auctions, and has accepted the controversial domain name ".sucks" (referring to the primarily US slang for being inferior or objectionable). sucks domains are owned and controlled by the Vox Populi Registry which won the rights for .sucks gTLD in November 2014.

The .sucks domain registrar has been described as "predatory, exploitive and coercive" by the Intellectual Property Constituency that advises the ICANN board. Because of the low utility of the ".sucks" domain, most fees come from "Brand Protection" customers registering their trademarks to prevent domains being registered.

Canadian brands had complained that they were being charged "exorbitant" prices to register their trademarks as premium names. FTC chair Edith Ramirez has written to ICANN to say the agency will take action against the .sucks owner if "we have reason to believe an entity has engaged in deceptive or unfair practices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act". The Register reported that intellectual property lawyers are infuriated that "the dot-sucks registry was charging trademark holders $2,500 for .sucks domains and everyone else $10."

U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte has said that trademark holders are "being shaken down" by the registry's fees. Jay Rockefeller says that .sucks is "a predatory shakedown scheme" and "Approving '.sucks', a gTLD with little or no public interest value, will have the effect of undermining the credibility ICANN has slowly been building with skeptical stakeholders." After a number of attempts to resolve the issue the domains are still held "on hold" as of 2019.

.org price cap removal

In April 2019, ICANN proposed an end to the price cap of .org domains and effectively removed it in July in spite of having received 3,252 opposing comments and only six in favor. A few months later, the owner of the domain, the Public Interest Registry, proposed to sell the domain to investment firm Ethos Capital.

.amazon gTLD dispute

In May 2019, ICANN decided in favor of granting exclusive administration rights to amazon.com for the .amazon gTLD after a 7 year long dispute with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO).

References

External links

ICANN DNS Operations