ICANN responds to US gov IANA enquiry

ICANN’s board of directors has claimed that “continued vibrancy of voluntary stakeholder participation” demonstrates the success of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, in response to a US government enquiry.

In June, the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) requested views on whether the handover of domain name system functions from the agency to a multi-stakeholder model should be “unwound”.

Back in 2016, the NTIA’s contract to perform core elements of the internet, including managing the domain name system, expired.

The IANA functions and oversight of ICANN were handed to a coalition consisting of internet stakeholders comprising businesses, academics, technical experts, governments and others.

In its request for public comments, the NTIA asked whether the multi-stakeholder approach continues to support an environment for the internet to grow and thrive, with further questions asking for details on the effectiveness of the model.

On Friday, July 13, ICANN’s board of directors noted: “We are happy to report that at this time, internet stakeholders continue to rely heavily on the IANA functions and participate actively in ICANN in furtherance of its mission to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet’s unique identifier systems.”

Within the letter, the board highlighted the success of the multi-stakeholder model: ICANN’s sixth annual customer survey, which took place this year, demonstrated that the IANA functions continue to be delivered to high satisfaction levels.

ICANN’s board also cited the high level of participation in its public meetings and policy development efforts.

If ICANN were to fail to deliver the IANA functions, the customers of those functions are “free to go elsewhere or to rely instead on different technologies”, added the letter.

“Similarly, should ICANN become unaccountable to stakeholders or no longer serve as an effective convener and facilitator of policy development, the multi-stakeholder community will stop participating.”

The letter concluded that neither of these two issues has arisen in the nearly two years since the transition took place.