The U.S. government will give up its last measure of control over the Internet, possibly as soon as next year.
An agreement between the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is set to expire in 2015 and will not be renewed. The news was first reported by the Washington Post.
"The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today launched a process to transition the role of the United States Government relating to the Internet's unique identifiers system," ICANN wrote in a blog post.
"The U.S. Government's current responsibilities to be transitioned include the procedural role of administering changes to the Domain Name System's (DNS) to the authoritative root zone file - the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the unique identifiers registries for Domain names, IP addresses, and protocol parameters," the post continued.
The details of the handover are not set yet. A commerce official told the Post that a new oversight body must be created first. The U.S. role in web domain management has been among the last pieces of the Internet under the government's control.
The U.S. has been widely criticized for its control of aspects of the Internet, particularly in light of Edward Snowden's revelations about the actions of the National Security Agency. The EU recently called for a replacement to ICANN in an effort to minimize U.S. control.
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