US Congress Hearing All Positive On IANA Transition Process

Witnesses testifying at the United States House Communications and Technology Subcommittee today unanimously reported success of the multistakeholder preparations for the transition of oversight over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) from the US government to the multistakeholder internet community.

The Director at the Global Internet Policy and Human Rights Project, Matthew Shears, called the proposals delivered by the two-year process at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) “the most successful expression of multistakeholder approaches to internet governance yet.”

Witnesses also agreed that the handing over of IANA, which is a set of central databases for domain names, IP addresses and protocol parameters essential for the internet, could still be realised by September allowing the US Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA) to stop renewing its IANA contract, dating back to 1998.

The NTIA in March 2014 announced its commitment to end its role as oversight body for the IANA. The transition was not about giving away the internet, as one of the presidential candidates had described it, said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice Coalition. Instead, it was “not sustainable for the US to hold that power forever in the post-Snowden world.”

DelBianco at the same time underlined that the role of governments had been diminished by the transition to an oversight by an “empowered community.” Governments have “lost influence” through obligations on consensus and a potential challenge of the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) advice implementation through a community process.

David Gross, former US coordinator, International Communications and Informational Policy, and now a partner Wiley Rein, warned that the community and Congress still should be “vigilant” with regard to some governments’ potential attempts to get into control over internet resources. One could not assert that such attempts are now over, Gross said.

The prevention of a government or intergovernmental body takeover – also for the future – is one of the major preconditions set by NTIA for the transition. Gross also recommended further vigilance on the implementation of the changes on ICANN accountability. Congress will get another chance to comment on the transition after the NTIA has finalised their evaluation of the proposals and ongoing implementation, presumably just before the congressional recess.

Further delays or another “IANA rider” on the next US appropriations bill could send a highly negative message to governments and business around the world, warned Audry Plonk, director, Global Security and Internet Governance Policy, Intel Corporation. Plonk, as well as Alissa Cooper, an engineer who chaired the IANA Stewardship Coordination Group, firmly underlined that they see all conditions for the transition met by the current proposals.