CADNA Against ICANN's Intention to Monopolize the Functionality of Internet

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is not in favor of the intentions of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to permanently monopolize the functions of crucial Internet infrastructure and cut off its ties with the US Government. ICANN aired its concerns in this regard in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) assessment of the status of the functions contract of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

IANA manages various major Internet-related functions like the allocation of IP addresses globally as well as the root zone of the domain name system (DNS). ICANN has a contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce to manage these functions of IANA. The contract will expire in September 2011. NTIA, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, sought input from CADNA on the numerous aspects of the IANA contract to be able to decide if it should renew the ICANN contract. ICANN wants to have the ultimate the authority to manage all the functions of IANA functions along with relevant technical organizations with no interference from the governmental or no contractual association with the DoC. The U.S. Government, which wants the DNS to be managed to benefit the whole Internet community, wishes eventually to transfer the IANA functions to the private sector.

In a release, Josh Bourne, CADNA president, said that, “Awarding ICANN the IANA contract yet again would be the simplest and most convenient option for the U.S. government, but it is not the best decision for the Internet as a whole. Until ICANN is able to improve its internal policy-making structure in order to ensure that its funding sources no longer have a monopolistic influence over the policy it creates, the IANA contract should be withheld.”

The commercial domain name industry is currently dominating ICANN’s current policy development process and does not suit the interests of the Internet user community. CADNA suggests the NTIA to reconsider ICANN only after a thorough revision of ICANN’s organizational structure to transform it into an unbiased policy-maker.

In other news, CADNA applauded the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for passing the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act out of committee yesterday. Sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 17 others, the bill sought to put an end to online content that infringed on intellectual property, such as websites pirating copyrighted material and selling counterfeit goods, by working with registrars, Internet service providers, and payment processors within the United States.