US government to retain control of DNS

By Steve Malone

Posted on 4 Jul 2005 at 10:30

The US government has announced that it intends to keep control of the internet DNS space indefinitely. This is a reversal of its earlier position established several years ago when it indicated that would some day hand over control to ICANN.

In a 'Statement of Principles', the US says 'Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role (our italics) in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.'

As the Internet was developed by the US it held control of its basic functions. Following the huge growth of the Internet as an international communications tool, several years ago, the US government handed certain functions over to an international body, ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. These included key functions such as Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions.

Having said that it intends to keep control of the DNS, and given the Bush administration's reputation for having little regard for international bodies, the US says it is happy with ICANN and the status quo. The statement says 'The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS. It also says that 'Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains'.

However, ICANN has been embroiled in several controversies over the years - mostly recently of the approval of a .xxx top-level domain for pornography sites which will not have endeared the body to the religious right.