ICANN Moves Toward Self-Rule

July 2004

Executives from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are inching closer to a new era of self-government apart from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Speaking from the Shangri-La Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during ICANN's tri-annual meeting Monday, Vint Cerf, ICANN chairman, said seven of the 24 tasks needed to move ICANN's operations out of the hands of the U.S. government are complete.

"We've made significant progress in the time since the most recent amendment between the DoC and ICANN, but plainly we still have a lot of work to do," he said.

Paul Twomey, ICANN's CEO, said the list of tasks involved in the governance shift would be posted within the next 24 hours.

ICANN, a private company established in October 1998 to shepherd the technical aspects of the U.S. root server, which includes the globally-popular .com, .net and .org domain names, and ensure its safety and stability, is set to take the reins of control in September 2006.