Department of Commerce - Property Implications of Proposed Transition of U.S. Government Oversight of Key Internet Technical Functions
Abstract
This responds to your request for our legal opinion regarding the property implications of the proposed transition, by the Department of Commerce's (Commerce) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), of the United States Government's oversight of key technical functions supporting the Internet including the Internet domain name system. These technical functions, known as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions, are currently performed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation, pursuant to a contract with Commerce administered by NTIA (referred to herein as the NTIA-ICANN contract). Verisign, Inc. (Verisign) currently performs related root zone management services pursuant to a cooperative agreement with Commerce, also administered by NTIA (referred to herein as the NTIA-Verisign cooperative agreement). For nearly two decades, NTIA has been leading efforts to transfer the U.S. Government's oversight role to a global multistakeholder community pursuant to a 1997 Presidential policy directive. On March 10, 2016, the ICANN Board of Directors submitted a detailed transition proposal (2016 Transition Proposal) for NTIA's review, developed at NTIAs request by the global multistakeholder community over the past two years. The 2016 Transition Proposal consists of two parts, one addressing the technical transition of NTIA's oversight role and the other addressing new measures to be put in place to ensure the accountability of ICANN to the global multistakeholder community after NTIA withdraws from its role. On June 9, 2016, NTIA reported that it had determined the 2016 Transition Proposal meets criteria the agency established in 2014. NTIA also reported that it had followed recommendations we made to NTIA in 2015 regarding a framework for the agency's assessment of the transition proposal.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 12, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1173772
Entities
People
- Susan A. Poling
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office