Just two weeks before the U.S. government is set to relinquish its control of the Internet, two of the most influential members of the Internet community jointly released a plan Thursday for the global computer network to govern itself.
Without an agreement, future development of the Internet could have been in jeopardy after the government's contract with Network Solutions expires on Sept. 30.
Compared with earlier plans, the proposal to create the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers would give more voice to Internet users, ranging from casual World Wide Web surfers to a new class of companies that seek to profit by registering domain names. The corporation's organization would also ensure that representatives from the U.S. or Europe will dominate the new governing body.
"Openness and accountability have been an issue for everybody," said Marty Burack, executive director of the Internet Society, a Reston, Va.-based organization that represents Internet users around the globe.
Both Network Solutions--the company that manages the domain name system under a National Science Foundation contract--and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)--which manages critical technical functions of the global computer network from USC's Information Sciences Institute--came up with the plan. Because of that backing, it is likely to be endorsed by the other key Internet groups whose support is needed for it to be adopted.
Network Solutions and IANA had been at odds over the best way for the Internet to become self-sufficient.
The new plan, which caps off more than a year of intense debate among numerous parties, includes ideas from the White Paper released this year by White House advisor Ira Magaziner and comments from an international forum held in Geneva in July.
If a consensus develops around the new proposal, the next step would be the formation of an interim board of directors. Gabe Battista, Network Solutions' chief executive, and Jon Postel, head of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, would lead the process.
"I think we'll be pretty close," said Postel, who is based at the Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey. "We've tried to come up with a consensus document with all the input any of us knew about."
