ICANN Under Fire by Foreign, And Now Domestic, Governments

Of course, nobody “owns” the World Wide Web, or even “runs” it, let alone a single country. But ICANN, otherwise known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, might easily be said to administrate it.

ICANN, a small California non-profit company with 100 employees, is responsible for administering the master database of worldwide domain names. ICANN essentially manages the IP address spaces and assignment of address blocks to regional Internet registries. It also maintains registries of Internet protocol identifiers. This power to run the Internet's “master database” was given to ICANN by the U.S. Commerce Department in a no-bid contract back in 1998.

So what's the problem? According to an article in today's Washington Post, to a number of countries, the power to administer this master database of Websites in the hands of an American company that might be considered an extension of the U.S. government is a little bit like the U.S. running the Internet. Many nations are adamant that the power ICANN currently holds be turned over to an international agency, like the U.N.

The fear that many countries have – particularly countries that like to tinker with their citizens' access to the Internet, such as China or Middle Eastern countries – is that the U.S. government would be able to override their restrictions on citizen Internet usage. “One concern is that if the U.S. decides Syria is behaving badly, then they could make all Websites using Syria's country code domain – .sy – point to freedom of expression sites, for example,” said Avri Doria, an ICANN group chairman. “Countries say, 'How can we subject ourselves to that?'”

Many in the U.S. government and ICANN fear just the flip side of that argument and believe that the power should remain in the hands of a democratic government, and that countries with human rights problems should not be given more power to isolate their citizens from the free flow of information.

The Commerce Department, though, is apparently getting a little nervous and would rather ICANN begin voluntarily allowing more foreign involvement in the domain name process. The alternative is having ICANN's power taken from it forcibly.

“The Commerce Department...worries that other countries might soon lobby en masse for the U.N. to take over instead. Commerce officials prefer a nimble private-sector organization to run the Web's addressing system, but the government doesn't believe ICANN is listening enough to the international community,” writes the Post.

To try and urge ICANN toward more international cooperation, the Obama administration, through the Commerce Department, has put ICANN on warning that it needs to change. Lawrence Strickling, an assistant secretary in the Commerce Department, has warned ICANN that it “must act” by June on a set of accountability guidelines made by him and international leaders who will continue to “monitor” it, said the Post. Strickling warned about the “forces at play” lobbying for the United Nations to take ICANN's power away from it.

ICANN may have little choice but to listen. Its “no bid” contract to operate, as bestowed by the Commerce Department, is up for renewal this fall.