The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a private U.S.-based nonprofit organization that coordinates the technical management of the Internet. Their main function is to manage the Domain Name System (DNS), the set of rules that allow Web sites to be accessed by letter names like www.yahoo.com [2]. By controlling the distribution of Internet addresses and the maintenance of the core systems at the heart of the Internet, ICANN acts as the Internet's gatekeeper.

U.S. government origins

ICANN was formed in 1998 after a long debate over how the Internet should be governed. In its early days, the Internet was a computer network run by the U.S. Department of Defense for researchers, universities, and government employees to share information and resources. To review the meanings of frequently used ICANN abbreviations, see the Index of ICANN-related terms.

Volunteers, the National Science Foundation, U.S. government contractors, and grant recipients handled many of the Internet's essential technical functions. Since these contractors received government money, the U.S. became the de facto controller of the DNS. As commercial institutions and individuals around the world were allowed to connect to the Net, the number of users grew, making management of the Internet more difficult.

By the mid-1990s, the Internet had become an international commercial and communication network. A number of groups were increasingly dissatisfied with the ad hoc way in which the Internet was run. Conflicts between trademark holders and "cybersquatters," individuals who registered domain names (Web addresses) identical to existing trademarks and then tried to sell the addresses to the trademark holders for profit, became more frequent. Meanwhile, the Internet was still governed by U.S. research agencies who were not accountable to the increasing number of Internet users who lived outside the U.S. or who represented commercial or individual interests.

In 1998, after consulting with various interest groups and soliciting public opinion, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would privatize the administration of domain names. That year, ICANN was incorporated. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Commerce Department and the new entity spelled out ICANN's four functions:

(1) setting policy for and directing the allocation of blocks of Internet addresses;
(2) overseeing the operation of the root server system, the special network that enables computers connected to the Internet to find each other;
(3) overseeing policy for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains (TLDs), the suffixes that appear in Internet domain
names, would be added;
(4) coordinating the assignment of other technical parameters necessary to keep the Internet running.

Early achievement

With this new mandate in hand, ICANN implemented a number of Internet policies over the next few years, with mixed results.

COMPETITION AMONG REGISTRARS: Ending the lucrative monopoly of Network Solutions (NSI), now known as VeriSign, ICANN allowed competing companies like Register.com to register domain names. Most people welcomed this move since it encouraged competition.

NEW TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS: In November 2000, after years of contentious debate, ICANN added seven new top-level domains (the suffixes to domain names; they are called global because they would not be limited to registrants from a particular country) - dot-aero, dot-biz, dot-coop, dot-info, dot-museum, dot-name, and dot-pro. Other organizations paid tens of thousands of dollars in non-refundable fees to be considered, but ICANN rejected their applications. The organization has given no indication as to when it might approve new top-level domains.

UNIFORM DISPUTE RESOLUTION POLICY: ICANN devised a controversial procedure in which disputes over who should own a trademarked domain name would go to arbitration before one of several groups approved by ICANN. Critics have charged that the ICANN-approved arbitrators issue decisions inconsistently, encouraging those who bring complaints to go to the arbitrator most likely to issue a favorable decision. Critics also say that by creating a new type of regulation that transcends national law, ICANN has overstepped its mandate of focusing purely on technical coordination of the Internet. Others warned that the policy unfairly protected large corporations with the money to launch and defend against lawsuits. Defenders of the policy say that something needed to be done to protect legitimate trademark owners.

GLOBAL REPRESENTATION: When ICANN was created, it agreed to abide by the principles of stability, competition, worldwide representation, and "bottom-up" management. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the ICANN and the Department of Commerce stated that ICANN was supposed to "promote the design, development, and testing of mechanisms to solicit public input, both domestic and international, into a private-sector decision making process." However, ICANN later decided that it would have no members and only five (not nine, as the U.S. Department of Commerce had originally proposed) of its 18 directors would be elected at large by Internet users around the world. In 2000, elections for the five at-large positions - one for each major region of the world - were held over the Internet. Two of the five at-large positions were filled by very vocal ICANN critics - Karl Auerbach of the U.S., representing North America, and Andy Mueller-Maguhn of Germany, representing Europe.

While opening the registrar business to competition received a generally positive response, most of ICANN's other actions were sharply criticized. Much of the criticism leveled at ICANN also raised questions about the fairness of its structure.

Harsh criticism and the surprising response

To its credit, ICANN's leaders include several distinguished and knowledgeable members of the Internet community. Vinton Cerf, who played a key role in the development of Internet security technology and served as founding president of the well-respected Internet Society, is the chair of the board. ICANN President M. Stuart Lynn was chief information officer in the University of California System. Other board members include a former president of Radcliffe College (now a school at Harvard University), a founding member of a European open forum for Internet networking, and former telecommunications and Internet executives from around the world. ICANN has been criticized for making policy decisions secretly and unilaterally without proper input.

Despite its talented leadership, ICANN has been accused of overspending money, making policy decisions secretly and unilaterally without proper input, and straying too far from its original mission of preserving the stability and openness of the Internet. In testimony before the U.S. Senate, Auerbach noted that ICANN has become a regulatory body accountable only to the attorney general in the U.S. state of California, where ICANN is incorporated. Auerbach and others have proposed remedies like limiting ICANN's powers, reducing its complicated bureaucratic structure, forcing the organization to focus on technical coordination, and increasing the transparency of its decision-making.

However, ICANN responded with proposals to limit public input even further. In February, Lynn published a 30-page document saying that the organization needed "deep, meaningful, structural reform." He expressed frustration that ICANN depended on voluntary cooperation of many entities, including governments and organizations controlling country-code top-level domains (Internet suffixes like dot-uk and dot-us that are the Internet equivalent of telephone country codes), with little funding. Calling the election of several ICANN board members "fatally flawed," he complained that the dispute surrounding the election of at-large members had "occupied a considerable portion of very limited resources."

Lynn proposed radical changes, including allowing representatives nominated by national governments to serve on ICANN's board, eliminating the election of board members, giving the organization more power, and increasing its budget. "Governments or bodies appointed with government involvement can, it seems to me, certainly take a better claim to truly reflect the public interest than a few thousands of self-selected voters scattered around the world," Lynn argued in his paper. He noted that several governments have given critically needed support to Internet development over the years, but they had no formal mechanism for input except for an advisory committee.

Fast track to reorganization

Lynn's document has intensified criticism of ICANN. U.S. Senator Conrad Burns requested that the U.S. Congress hold public hearings on ICANN. On March 13, several members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the Commerce Department expressing concern about the proposed changes. However, no hearing date has been set. Five days later, Auerbach, with the help of the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), sued ICANN in a U.S. court to get access to the organization's financial records.

Meanwhile, ICANN has already taken steps to implement Lynn's proposal. During a meeting held in Accra, Ghana last month, ICANN's board voted to eliminate future worldwide elections for board members, meaning that elected board members like Auerbach and Mueller-Maguhn will probably not be replaced when their terms expire. On March 30, ICANN released its preliminary 2002-03 budget, which called for a 28 percent increase in expenditures from the previous year but allowed expenditures for at-large support "only to the extent that separate external funding support is received." The budget suggests that the money be spent not to hold public elections but to help form at-large organizations. The Committee on ICANN Evolution and Reform, created by ICANN last month, has set up a Web-based forum (http://forum.icann.org/reform/ [3]) and e-mail addresses (substantive submissions are to be sent to [email protected] [4], direct communications to the committee to [email protected] [5]) to solicit public opinion. According to ICANN, though, the committee's "expedited schedule" means that comments received after April 29 "are likely to be significantly less useful than those received by that date." (The committee is scheduled to make recommendations to ICANN's board at its meeting in Bucharest, Romania on June 28.) So far, only a handful of people have posted comments on the forum, and most of them lambast Lynn's proposal as arrogant, ignorant, and undemocratic.

For now, everyone agrees that ICANN has failed. ICANN's plans for reforming itself seem to be on the fast track to implementation, but there is no consensus on how ICANN can be fixed. The outcome of the debate will ultimately affect how people access the Internet and what they can do online.

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