Thought Domainincite.com broke the news last night, here is the official press release by ICANN that its contract with IANA has been renewed with the US Department of Commerce.”
Apparently the outgoing CEO Rd Beckstrom signed off on it on his last day on the job.
“ICANN will continue to perform the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions following the awarding of a new contract by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration(NTIA).
The IANA functions involve the global coordination of unique identifiers that keep the Internet running smoothly. These include (1) the coordination of the assignment of technical Internet protocol parameters; (2) the administration of certain responsibilities associated with the Internet Domain Name Service (DNS) root zone management; (3) the allocation of Internet numbering resources; and (4) other services related to the management of the ARPA and INT top-level domains (TLDs).
The new contract term begins 1 October 2012.
“This is the longest IANA functions contract we’ve ever had, running for a period of three years with two 2-year renewal options,” said Akram Atallah, ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer. “This contract reflects the input of the stakeholders from around the globe and serves as an affirmation of support for ICANN and the multi-stakeholder model.”
“We are honoured by the awarding of this contract and we are committed to performing the IANA functions at the highest possible level,” said Jamie Hedlund, Vice President of North America. “We look forward to continuing our work with the multi-stakeholder community to ensure that we operate effectively, transparently and in the global public interest.”
News of the award came shortly after the conclusion of ICANN’s 44th public meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. It was the largest public meeting in the organization’s history with 1,821 registered attendees.
The next public meeting will occur 14-19 October in Toronto, Canada.”
“The IANA functions involve…”
“The IANA FUNCTIONS involve…”
Not carefully, the IANA **FUNCTIONS** have been separated from IANA POLICY
ICANN has been awarded the DMV Operations – the FUNCTIONS – “the tasks”
POLICY such as “What strings are selected and why…” will be GAC-driven with the help of “the insiders”
Did Beckstrom sign it in Istanbul, Turkey? And why are Internet events being held in a country that often blocks access to sites such as YouTube for its netizens?
I don’t know why but I feel we were ‘sold out’ again.
It is well known that the U.S. gov’t is terrible at negotiating.
Plus, the contract contains the rubber stamping of 4 add’l years.
(7 yr contract.) Ouch !!!
I wish they let Rick Schwartz negotiate the contract for them.
But, it is too late now.
Acro
According to a tweet he did in fact sign it in Istanbul, Turkey
It was not the part of any event as far as I know
Bad
I don’t know if the US Government could afford what Rick would charge to negotiate for them
The REAL Back-Story on ICANN & IANA
It is All About FACE-SAVING – ICANN is (was) an embarrassment for the USA
The [[[insiders]]] are now headed to Washington.DC to set Policy via the NTIA, FCC, FTC, DOJ, etc. The ITU & UN are their competition.
BEWARE – The FCC plays the game very different from the ITU & UN (and ISOC)
The FCC will bring in BIG vendors like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. and have them work out the policies which the FCC then rubber-stamps
ICANN could not get policy work done because they allowed clueless groupies to fill forums with circular nonsense. ICANN (IANA) now has been given “simple tasks” to do like the DMV. You can expect ICANN employees to be leaving soon or be dismissed. How many DMV workers are required to tell someone their license plate number ? issued by the policy-makers.
The status quo shall continue
This is just one more step in the direction of confusion. Rubber stamping, signing things on the last day at the office, not even at an event. Creating “busy work” for employees (smoke and mirrors).