Holding on to Net names

While many speakers called the existing arrangement flawed, most said ICANN still isn’t ready to handle the task of administering the domain name system on its own. ‘‘There certainly are still strong arguments that there’s more work to be done,’’ John M R Kneuer, the Commerce Department’s acting assistant secretary for communications and information, said. He wouldn’t say if the deadline would be extended, but strongly hinted it.

The move wouldn’t be popular around the world, where many people and governments are calling for the US to allow more international control of the domain name system. ‘‘No single government should have a pre-eminent role in Internet governance,’’ says Manal Ismail, Egypt’s representative to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee.

Some countries have threatened to establish their own alternative domain name systems. That could balkanise the Internet, potentially creating a series of duplicative sites in other countries, such as many versions of the popular MySpace.com. ‘‘The continued stability of the Internet is important, not just to us, but to our users,’’ said David Fares, vice-president of global economic policy at News Corp., which owns MySpace.

Many speakers called on ICANN to become less secretive in the way it operates. The recent decision by ICANN’s board to reject a proposed .xxx domain for pornographic sites has been strongly criticised because of suggestions the Bush administration influenced the vote. A spokeswoman for the EU’s commissioner for information society and media, had accused the US of ‘‘political interference’’ in the decision.

But political interference could become a bigger problem for ICANN if the US government relinquishes oversight of the domain name system too soon. ICANN could become susceptible to more heavy-handed influence by other countries or the United Nations, said Tim Ruiz, vice-president of corporate development and policy planning for the Go Daddy Group Inc, which includes the largest registrar of domain names. But Lynn St. Amour, president and chief executive of the Internet Society, an international group that focuses on global coordination of the network, said the US could lessen its oversight of ICANN, serving only as a ‘‘backstop’’ in emergency situations.

Kneuer said the US is committed to eventually allowing ICANN to fully control the domain name system. But he reiterated a Commerce Department principle released last year that the US would continue its oversight of one specific function of the system indefinitely—authorising changes to the technical master file of Net addresses. Improper changes to what’s known as the ‘‘authoritative root zone file’’ could destabilise the entire Internet. —Jim Puzzanghera