Icann gets a yellow card

Web authority the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has had its powers extended for another year by the US Department of Commerce (DoC), despite the body being "disappointed in Icann's progress".

On Friday, DoC assistant secretary Nancy Victory expressed her disappointment that Icann's progress on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) tasks "had moved so slowly".

The MoU is the list of tasks drawn up between Icann and the DoC at the non-profit organisation's inception in 1998.

Icann is effectively an experiment by the US government in handing over management of the internet to a private body.

Its progress was up for review on 30 September and this is the third time that the MoU has been extended for another year.

"The DoC considers the organisation's recent broad reform efforts to be a substantial justification for affording Icann a limited amount of additional time to achieve the MoU tasks," wrote Victory in her report.

In acknowledgement of Icann's poor success rate in the completion of its prescribed tasks, such as the securing of the 13 top level domain root DNS servers, the DoC has boosted its own involvement in the governing of the internet and will be watching Icann very closely.

Icann's short history is marked by infighting. During February and March of this year board members branded the organisation a "failed experiment in internet policy development" and called for the transfer of stewardship to the Internet Architecture Board.

Commenting on the extension of the MoU, Icann president Stuart Lynn said that increased support from the DoC would "allow Icann to complete its ongoing reform processes, and to resume progress towards its stated goals".

In addition to the extension, the MoU has been amended to make Icann focus on five areas in the next year.

These are the scope of its mission, the transparency and accountability of its decision making, its responsiveness to internet stakeholders, its advisory role for national governments, and the security of internet functions.

"Although the MoU tasks have been augmented, Icann should be a technical co-ordination body whose policy-making role is limited," said Victory. "Icann should not be the government of the internet."

One of the biggest tasks on which Icann's future hinges is the securing of the 13 root servers distributed around the world, and the tighter integration of the three top level domain operators and 240 country level operators into the fold.

"Icann's ability to establish stable relationships with the root server system operators is a core transition task. To date, little progress has been made," said the DoC report.

"This failure to complete these tasks will be a significant consideration by the Department in determining Icann's future," said Victory.