The so-called IANA function (short for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) has been contracted out by the USA government since the dawn of the public internet.
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After a years-long transition, the US has finally agreed to cede control of a key piece of the global internet’s backbone.
The agency established the criteria in March 2014 while ICANN gathered internet stakeholders to develop a transition plan that will meet NTIA’s requirements.
The United States government has accepted for a while now that its control over a crucial part of the internet’s governance would end.
From the 1st of October 2016 the U.S. will lose its dominant voice – although ICANN will remain in Los Angeles. The entity that handles the contract, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has been retooled to take over the function on its own.
Earlier this month, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said it received a letter from ICANN telling them that the transition of all tasks would be completed by the September 30 deadline. “NTIA has thoroughly reviewed the report”.
“We informed ICANN today that based on that review and barring any significant impediment, NTIA intends to allow the IANA functions contract to expire as of October 1”, Strickling wrote in the post.
Lawrence Strickling, the head of the NTIA, said in a blog post that the transition “represents the final step in the USA government’s longstanding commitment, supported by three [presidential] administrations, to privatize the internet’s domain-name system”.
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For years, the Obama administration has been moving forward with a plan to move from from an internet domain name system overseen by the United States to one under the purview of an global group of stakeholders.
