The U.S. Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have renewed their contract for ICANN to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function for five more years.

This means that authority over the Web’s domain names will remain under U.S. control until 2011. Various non-U.S. countries and interests had campaigned to place the control with an international organization like the United Nations or with private corporate interests.

There are plenty of opinions about the U.S. pushing their views on the world through this authority. Look no further than the demise of the .xxx extensions… not that I would have taken part or admitted to doing so. But Cranky.xxx would have had a nice ring to it.

On the whole the decision isn’t a huge surprise. And the threats by some European Nations to simply host an alternate name server network are just plain dumb. But as the online economy continues to engulf larger chunks of the global economy, expect the issue to become more heated and much more difficult to resolve 5 years from now.


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