ICANN CEO sets off explosion of new Internet names (Q&A) | Internet & Media - CNET News: "... What exactly is the nature of your contract with the US Department of Commerce? . . . It's a zero-dollar contract: there's no money that passes between us and the Department of Commerce. The origins of ICANN started when the US government left this function of updating the root of the Internet Domain Name System. Three things are covered by this contract: the Domain Name System, which are the names; the numbers, which are the IP numbers [Internet Protocol numbers are used to route data across the Net from one machine to another]; and the protocol parameters. That's the extent of our relationship with the US government, other than the US government, like any other government, being a member of ICANN's governmental advisory committee. This contract continues to maintain the US government's stewardship over these three areas that we do. The US government role is to ensure that we are doing these functions as the community has asked us to do them. The US government is essentially in an oversight role over ICANN. The US government as well as the contract itself has always defined that at some point that stewardship will be replaced by the multistakeholder stewardship of the ICANN community. This was always envisaged as coming, but the question was when and how. I have in the last few months publicly stated that the time for that has come...." (read more at the link above)
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