ICANN Fact Sheet

What:

Formed in October 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit, private sector corporation formed by a broad coalition of the Internet's business, technical, academic, and user communities. ICANN has been recognized by the U.S. Government as the global consensus entity to coordinate the technical management of the Internet's domain name system, the allocation of IP address space, the assignment of protocol parameters, and the management of the root server system.

ICANN is dedicated to preserve the operational stability of the Internet; to promote competition; to achieve broad representation of the global Internet community; and to coordinate policy through private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based means.

Who:

ICANN is a non-profit corporation with a 19-member volunteer Board of Directors. Its Board has worked to pave the way for a smooth and stable transition from the present technical management system, which has been funded and controlled by the US government, to a new privatized and internationalized system. The Board's chairman is Esther Dyson, the chairman of EDventure Holdings, which publishes the monthly Release 1.0 newsletter. The other Directors have been drawn from a range of backgrounds and nations around the world.

In early November 1999, ICANN's nine-member Initial Board was joined by nine newly-elected Directors chosen by ICANN's three supporting organizations -- the Domain Name, Address, and Protocol Supporting Organizations -- which collectively represent a broad cross-section of the global Internet's business, technical, academic, and user communities. In addition, ICANN has recently launched its At Large Membership, which will be responsible for choosing At-Large Directors to replace those on the Initial Board. By November 2000, the first round of At Large elections will choose five At Large Directors.

Why:

In the past, many of the essential technical coordination functions of the Internet were handled on an ad hoc basis by the U.S. government, its contractors and volunteers. This informal structure represented the spirit and culture of the research community in which the Internet developed. However, the growing international importance of the Internet has necessitated the creation of a technical management and policy development body that is both more formalized in structure, more accountable, and more fully reflective of the diversity of the world's Internet communities. Specifically, ICANN is assuming responsibility to coordinate the stable operation of the Internet in four key areas: the Domain Name System (DNS); the allocation of IP address space; the management of the root server system; and the coordination of protocol number assignment.

How:

ICANN's mandate is not to "run the Internet." Rather, it is to coordinate the management of only those specific technical, managerial and policy development tasks that require central coordination -- the assignment of globally unique names, addresses, and protocol parameters.

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