ICANN freed from U.S. oversight

IDG News Service - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has reached a new agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce allowing the nonprofit organization greater independence, while giving more countries oversight of the organization.

The new agreement, called an Affirmation of Commitments, sets up reviews of ICANN's performance every three years, with members of ICANN advisory committees, the Commerce Department, independent experts and others serving on the review teams.

The Commerce Department will continue to be involved in ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, but the new agreement recognizes ICANN as a global "private-sector led organization."

The new agreement is a "huge moment not just for ICANN but for the Internet," said Paul Levins, vice president at ICANN. "This really vital resource was being overseen by one government."

The U.S. government will have "one seat at the table" for the three-year reviews, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said in a video on the organization's site. "What it really means is we're going global," he said. "All the reviews and all the work done will be submitted for public comment to the world. But there's no separate or unique or separate reporting to the United States government. All the reporting is to the world; that's the real change."

The new agreement was announced today, the same day that an 11-year series of memorandums of understanding between ICANN and the Commerce Department expired.

The new agreement won praise from critics who have complained that the U.S. governmenthas had too much control over ICANN, which manages the Internet's DNS (domain name system). The new agreement should allow ICANN to become more open and accountable to users worldwide, said Viviane Reding, the European Union's commissioner for information society and media.

The new agreement ends "unilateral" review of ICANN by the Commerce Department and sets up independent review panels, she said in a statement.

"I welcome the U.S. administration's decision to adapt ICANN's key role in internet governance to the reality of the 21st century and of a globalized world," Reding said in her statement. "If effectively and transparently implemented, this reform can find broad acceptance among civil society, businesses and governments alike."

The challenge, she said, will be to make ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee more effective, as it has a major role in appointing the review panels.

"Independence and accountability for ICANN now look much better on paper," Reding said. "Let's work together to ensure that they also work in practice."

The new agreement commits ICANN to a "multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model for DNS technical coordination." It also requires ICANN to "adhere to transparent and accountable budgeting processes, fact-based policy development, cross-community deliberations, and responsive consultation procedures that provide detailed explanations of the basis for decisions."