India to seek dilution of US role in Net governance

February 2005

INDIA will push for dilution of control of US-supported Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over global Internet governance. It will also suggest setting up an inter-government organisation to co-ordinate issues related to Internet and IP-based services at the UN-sponsored Working Group on Internet Governance meeting to be held in Geneva between February 14 and 16.

Currently, most Internet related activities such as domain name registration and Internet address registrationare primarily controlled by ICANN, a private organisation working under an MoU with the US Government.

"India, among the developing countries, is not at ease with the limited influence of governments in ICANN. ICANN's incorporation in the US implicitly means it will always be subject to the US law. It is believed that this shall introduce an asymmetric role of the US Government vis-à-vis other governments," according to a position paper by the Department of Telecom for the working group.