The United States will hand over the Domain Naming System (or DNS) to ICANN in October, after 20 years. DNS is the system that attaches a website's name, such as google.com, to its IP address.
The US has had control over the international system since its inception, but will hand over control of the system to the non-profit organisation ICANN soon, after the agreement was made in 2014. The changeover, confirmed last week, has been criticised by the former Presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, for opening up the internet to “China or Russia”, after being “protected by the US”.
After being controlled by the US government, ICANN will now report to a range of stakeholders including countries, private businesses and technical experts.
Prof Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey said that the change was a good thing, and that it was no longer “governed by one nation”, but had become a properly overseen “global asset”.
