ICANN, the group charged with overseeing the Internet's addressing system, has submitted a report (PDF) to the US Department of Commerce in which it argues that the time has come to end US oversight.
In October 2006, the Department of Commerce and ICANN signed the Joint Project Agreement, a three-year pact that extended Commerce's oversight of the body, while leaving open the possibility that the group would become independent as soon as April of this year. In the new report, ICANN argues that it has already met the requirements for independence and should therefore be freed from oversight.
"Ending the JPA will provide long-term stability and security for a model that works," said ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush in its report. "It will provide confidence to all participants that the investment of time, thought and energy for over nine years has secured an Internet coordination body that will always be owned by all stakeholders, not managed or overseen by any one entity."
In December 2006, UK-based One World Trust began a review of ICANN's operations with an eye towards determining how transparent the group's inner workings were. The results, released in March 2007, were mostly positive. ICANN was praised as a "very transparent" organization and given 39 recommendations to "further improve standards of accountability and transparency within ICANN."
ICANN was created in 1998 and has been under US oversight since its inception. That has been a source of contention for some around the world who chafe at the idea of the US exercising authority of the Internet's root addressing system. Proposals have been made for ICANN's responsibilities to be transferred to a UN agency, the International Telecommunications Union, or managed via a public-private partnership.
During the November 2007 Internet Governance Forum meeting in Rio de Janeiro, US control over ICANN was a hot-button issue. A number of nations represented at the meeting expressed concerns over the US' continued control, arguing that the international community "should take a more active role." Some of the countries making the case for international control, however, are repressive regimes that have a long history of clamping down free expression and blocking parts of the internet.
The midterm review of the JPA will take place in March, and ICANN is encouraging the "Internet Community" to submit comments on the review to the Department of Commerce through the February 15 deadline. "If you continue to believe, in full transition of the domain name system to the private sector, and in an Internet that is coordinated not controlled, now is the time to say so and be a part of the next step in that transition," argues ICANN.
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