US Gives up Control Over Internet's Address Book: What to Know

LOS ANGELES, CA — On Saturday, the United States will give up its regulatory authority over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, the non-profit organization based in Los Angeles that oversees the Internet's address book. Since ICANN was created in 1998, the U.S. government has held a contract with the agency, but that changes when the Commerce Department's contract with ICANN expires Sept. 30.

A last-ditch effort was launched by four states, including Texas, to block the move. Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada filed a lawsuit to stop the scheduled transfer. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been very vocal against the transfer, arguing that giving up control over ICANN could give countries like Russia and Iran greater authority over the Internet and that it endangers free speech online.

However, as explained by the Washington Post, ICANN has no power over individual speech online, it simply supervises domain names on the Internet. The flow of speech on the Internet, as the Post explains, is up to individual network and platform operators. Furthermore, in an FAQ, ICANN explains that "its multistakeholder model is designed to ensure that no single entity, whether country, business or interest group, can capture ICANN or exclude other parties from decision-making processes."

Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, wrote in an Op-Ed for the Huffington Post that the transition will make ICANN more transparent and directly accountable to Internet stakeholders. Black explains that restrictive regimes like Russia and China will have even less influence than they do today.

Cruz and other GOP senators failed to add language to the stopgap spending bill passed by Congress Wednesday that would have blocked the transfer. A federal judge denied the last-minute lawsuit to block the transfer.

Since that last-minute hurdle has cleared, here's what you need to know about the transfer:

• What exactly is ICANN's role? ICANN's Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) supervises domain names on the Internet, matching Internet addresses with computer addresses.
• The Internet's address book will be controlled by an organization that is independent of government control, a move experts like Black say is important to preserving the openness of the Internet. As The Economist explains, when ICANN was created in 1998, the U.S. kept it on a long leash since few precedents existed and because of a fear that the agency would lack legitimacy.
• The transition does not threaten freedom on the Internet, as the functions performed by ICANN are technical and not content based, the organization explains. Because of its bylaws, it cannot become a place for regulation of content.
• While the revelations of spying by the National Security Agency had nothing to do with America's oversight on ICANN, it prompted the Department of Commerce to announce that it would relinquish control over the agency.
• A governmental advisory committee, which includes the United States, will continue to update ICANN "on issues of public policy, and especially where there may be an interaction between ICANN's activities or policies and national laws or international agreements." Some key changes to ICANN as part of the transition process are specifically designed to reduce the influence of this committee.

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