IGF attendees: America, surrender the root zone file!

IGF attendees: America, surrender the root zone file!


Back in October, the US Commerce Department changed its agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Out went the "Joint Project Agreement" and in came the "Affirmation of Commitments." That may not sound like much of change, but the new document removed even more US control from ICANN.

It was welcomed by the international community, but some continue to argue that it didn't go far enough, and this opposition to continued US influence over the domain name system and IP addressing surfaced again at the United Nations-backed Internet Governance Forum going on this week in Egypt.
Root control

A wide-ranging three-hour session on critical Internet resources at IEG in Sharm El Sheikh made clear the continuing points of global friction when it comes to how US involvement in Internet control is perceived by its critics. Now that the JPA is gone and the AoC is in place, special attention will be paid to a new critical Internet resources topic: the operation of the IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.