ICANN asks for comment on IANA agreements

ICANN is seeking comments on its proposal to transition the stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to a global multistakeholder community.

The call for comments focusses on three agreements concerning the IANA intellectual property rights (IPR).

The proposal requires that the domain names that ICANN uses to perform the IANA functions and the IANA trademarks are transferred to an independent entity.

ICANN is seeking feedback on elements including an assignment, licence and community agreement.

The assignment agreement will see ICANN transfer the IANA IPR to the Internet Engineering Taskforce Trust (IETF), while the licence agreements will see the right to licence the IPR transferred back to ICANN.

The community agreement sets out how the naming, numbering and protocol parameters communities will work together with the IETF Trust.

ICANN carries out several functions, including the delegation of top-level domains, under the IANA contract, which is signed with  the US Department of Commerce (DoC).

The contract was first signed in 2000 and has been renewed several times since. It is due to expire in September this year.

In 2014, the US government said it would be withdrawing from the contract and that there was international support for the multi-stakeholder model with a new provider.

In March, ICANN’s board sent a proposal, to the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which falls under the DoC.

The NTIA will now review the proposal.  If approved, the plan is expected to be implemented before September 2016.

The deadline for public comments on the proposals closes on September 12.