The European Commission is making its message to the U.S. Department of Commerce loud and clear. Viviane Reding, European Union information technology commissioner, wants the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to separate from the U.S. department and discontinue its contract with the government when it expires in September.
For the past decade, ICANN has been dealing with top-level domains and managing the Internet address system that connects 1.6 billion Internet users. It has been working under an agreement with the Department of Commerce.
Reding said the arrangement has so far been reasonable. But the EU has repeatedly asked for a system run by the private sector, without government interference.
“The Clinton administration’s decision to progressively privatize the Internet’s domain name and addressing system is the right one,” Reding said in a video statement. “In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world.”
Brad White, ICANN’s director of media affairs, said as of publication time that the “powers that be are still studying the Reding statement.”
Reding hopes that once ICANN’s agreement with the U.S. government expires Sept. 30, ICANN will decide to be run privately — but wonders who will take the reins. She is suggesting that a small, independent and international tribunal have the right to review ICANN decisions.
“All people, companies, bodies or organizations affected by ICANN decisions should have the right to request full judicial review of ICANN decisions,” she said.
Currently US Courts in California handle all legal decisions affecting ICANN, and Reding believes that needs to change. “The Courts of California alone are certainly not the best place to handle legal challenges originating in all continents of…