Washington
D.C.: In a policy reversal, the United States plans
to retain its control over the top-level domain and addressing
system (DNS) of the Internet.
Earlier
the US had said that it was it was willing to give up
its control over the internet's master indexes and root
directory. Although the internet's 13 root servers are
in private hands, the US commerce department holds veto
power over the more than 250 top-level domains, such as
.com and .net.
Speaking
at a wireless conference in Washington Thursday, assistant
commerce secretary Michael Gallagher said his agency plans
to retain that veto authority despite earlier pledges
to divest itself of involvement in Internet governance,
eventually ceding control to the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Later
Thursday, the US government's new principles were posted
on Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) Web site.
"The
United States is committed to taking no action that would
have the potential to adversely impact the effective and
efficient operation of the DNS," the statement reads.
"(The United States) will therefore maintain its
historic role in authorising changes or modifications
to the authoritative root zone file."
The
policy statement acknowledges that other governments have
a legitimate public policy interest in the management
of their country's top-level domains.
"As
such, the United States is committed to working with the
international community to address these concerns, bearing
in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security
of the internet's DNS," NTIA states.
The
NTIA also said it was committed to continue working with
ICANN, the private organization formed in 1998 to oversee
the technical global operations of the internet.
|