EU seeks internet-control change

By Aoife White

Date: 07/07/05

The debate on who - if anyone - should be in charge of the internet is gearing up ahead of the world summit on the internet society in Tunis in November.

The Council of Ministers and the European Parliament have indicated that they would like to discuss a new model to oversee the authorisation of address changes, which for the moment lies with the United States, but the European internet industry takes a different view.

The internet's rapid growth is based on its decentralised structure which allows users to create websites which are granted addresses by domain registries.

The ultimate responsibility for authorising changes to internet addresses lies with the US. The country said last week that it does not intend to hand over this control to the private non-profit organisation which manages addresses, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN's role comes under the microscope in a United Nations report on internet regulation to be published later in July.

Paul Kane, the chairman of the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), said ICANN was claiming it was in charge of the internet and was insisting it had the right to authorise changes of address. "That is not what they were set up for. They are not in charge of the internet and that is what the US has just reminded them of," he said.

He said his group - whose members manage top-level domain addresses such as .fr and .co.uk - did not care who ran the address system as long as it functioned quickly and smoothly. He said this was not happening and ICANN was going beyond its core mandate by trying to exert more control over national domain registries.

Both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament have indicated that they would like to discuss a new model to oversee ICANN. One of many suggestions would be a new inter-governmental agency to take over some or all of ICANN's responsibilities.

Kane said the European internet industry took a different view and believed the US supported a bottom- up approach, carrying out changes only on the request of domain registries.

"It is possible for the US to remove a top-level domain from the rootzone files. The reality is that it would almost certainly never happen," he said.

ICANN said it was still reviewing the US statement to see what its implications would be. "The US recognises ICANN as the appropriate organisation for doing what we do," said spokeswoman Theresa Swinehart.

Article looks at the recent debate on regulation of the Internet, especially the responsibility for the authorisation of address changes.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers: Homepage http://www.icann.org

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