The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved the IANA Stewardship Transition plan proposed by ICANN, according to Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the US Department of Commerce, as quoted by Domain Incite.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Strickling noted that the plan, which took around two years to develop, satisfied all the criteria set forth by NTIA in 2014. Specifically, the plan is based on supporting and promoting the management model involving all the interested parties (multi-stakeholder model). It maintains the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS; meets the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and guarantees the openness of the Internet. Mr. Strickling also stressed that the plan did not replace NTIA’s role with another government agency as a supervisor.
The current contract between NTIA and IANA expires on September 30. However, conservative US politicians are making every effort to prevent the transfer of authority over the domain system to the Internet community after that date passes. The day before Mr. Strickling’s announcement, Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Sean Duffy presented another bill that would stop the transition of the management functions to IANA. When asked about the bill’s prospects, the assistant secretary refused to “speculate” on its chances. At the same time, he noted that NTIA was open to discussions with lawmakers and was willing to provide all necessary information and explain its stance to any of them.
