The US government has lost control over the infrastructure of the Internet

On October 1, a contract expired between ICANN , the international organization responsible for the assignment of domain names and IP addresses on the Internet, and the National Telecommunications and Information Agency of the United States, as reported on the organization’s official website .

Since 1998, ICANN has managed the assignment of domain names and IP addresses through IANA , another non-profit US organization. The US government had veto power over the IANA and, in fact, controlled the Internet.
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The process of removing the network from the control of the United States government began several years ago. Since 2006, the possibilities of non-renewal of the contract with the National Telecommunications Agency by ICANN have been considered, but relations with the US government have been finally broken just now.

In recent years, several states have been concerned about the sole influence of the United States on the infrastructure of the Internet, which could be used by the latter with political motives. So, for the withdrawal of ICANN under the management of intergovernmental organizations, for example, UNPO or the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), at one time spoke the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation.

These proposals had very specific goals: the transfer of management of national domain zones to national governments. In 2012, the initiative of the Russian Federation to change the ITU regulations (when transferring rights from ICANN) and the subsequent transfer of control over territorial domain names to sovereign governments was supported by such countries as China, Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Bahrain. Western countries represented by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union countries opposed such an initiative.

Now ICANN has been completely removed from the influence of any political forces and the process of managing the infrastructure of the Internet has completely shifted to the private sector.

The board of the organization hopes to build a dialogue between public organizations, business, scientists, technical experts and sovereign governments on the management of the Network. "... this is the best way to make sure that the Internet of tomorrow will remain as free, open and accessible as the Internet of today", said Steven D. Crocker, chairman of the board of the organization, as ICANN’s position.

According to Vedomosti, the liberalization and the transition to managing the Internet in private hands were opposed to the American states of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Nevada.

The US Department of Defense is actually the creator of the Internet after the launch of the ARPANET network in 1969. Since then, the Network has been actively developing, including with the support of the United States, and in 2012, the state declared exclusive rights to everything related to the Internet.

The transfer of infrastructure management into private hands according to the plaintiffs from the states listed above is detrimental to the US national interests and occurred with the connivance of the United States, the US Department of Commerce, US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, the National Information and Communications Administration (NTIA) and NTIA Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling. who are all claimed as defendants.

The main motivation of the lawsuit is that the transfer of control of the infrastructure to ICANN jeopardizes the functioning of the Network entirely. Previously, ICANN was required to coordinate with the IANA government-controlled, but the contract has now expired and the organization will be able to make decisions alone.

The Internet is a strategic area and many states treat its functioning as a matter of national security. Taking the infrastructure of the Network out of control of the United States will be able to partially alleviate the concerns of sovereign governments on this issue, as well as contribute to the liberalization of the Internet.