U.S. Shrinks Role in Web Oversight

The Commerce Department promised Friday to take more of a hands-off approach to the Internet as it extended for three years its oversight of a Marina del Rey organization that handles network addressing issues.

Internet registrars, some foreign governments and other critics of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have complained about the U.S. oversight role, saying the group sometimes makes decisions that don’t reflect the Internet community at large.

Under the new agreement, the Commerce Department will “continue to provide expertise and advice on methods and administrative procedures to encourage greater transparency, accountability and openness.” No specific initiatives were announced.

“It’s always been our express intent ... for an independent, private sector-led ICANN,” said John M.R. Kneuer, the department’s acting assistant secretary for communications and information.

ICANN was created in 1998 to handle the Internet’s addressing issues, including the key directories that help Web browsers and e-mail programs find other computers on the Internet.

It will no longer have its work prescribed for it by the Commerce Department.

“How it works and what it works on is up to ICANN and its community to devise,” said a statement released by the group.

ICANN also is no longer required to provide a report to the Commerce Department every six months, but it will file an annual report addressed to the whole Internet community.

The previous agreement contained about 25 specific organizational milestones ICANN had to achieve, but there are no such requirements in the new deal, said Paul Twomey, ICANN’s chief executive.

“This is not an example of the U.S. government telling ICANN what to do,” Twomey said. “Those days are over.”

But the Commerce Department isn’t totally removed from the process. After 18 months, the agency said it would review “ICANN’s progress toward becoming a more stable organization with greater transparency and accountability in its procedures and decision making.”

That review is a good step, but there should be more specific goals and deadlines included in the agreement to measure responsiveness for the rest of the world, said Kneuer’s predecessor, Michael Gallagher, who is now a partner at Perkins Coie law firm in Washington.