Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Web Address Controversy Deepens After U.S. Warning

Prodhan, Georgina. "Web Address Controversy Deepens After U.S. Warning." Reuters, March 23, 2012.

From the article: "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) depends on its U.S. government contract to coordinate the unique addresses that tell computers where to find each other, without which the global Internet could not function.

But this month the government warned that the non-profit body's rules against conflicts of interest were not strong enough and only temporarily extended ICANN's contract - which it has held since its formation in 1998 - instead of renewing it as many in the industry had expected.

A failure to secure the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract would severely damage ICANN's ability to implement its address expansion program, the most radical move in the organization's history.” Read more