Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California. ICANN is a California Non – Profit Corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internets - related tasks performed directly on behalf of the U.S Government by other organizations. The task of ICANN is to managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses. The work has its concerned the introduction of new generic top – level domains. The technical work of ICANN is referred to as the LANA function and the rest of ICANN is mostly concerned with defining policy.
On September 29, 2006 the ICANN signed a new agreement with the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) that is a step forward toward the full management of the Internet’s system of centrally coordinated identifiers through the multi-stakeholder model of consultation that ICANN represents.
ICANN is formally organized as a non-profit corporation “for charitable and public purposes” under the California Non – profit Public Benefit Corporation Law. ICANN is managed by a Board of Directors, which is composed of six representatives of the Supporting Organizations, sub-groups that deal with specific sections of the policies under ICANN’s purview. And eight independent representatives of the general public interest, selected through a Nominating Committee in which all the constituencies of ICANN are represented; and the President and CEO, appointed by the rest of the Board.
The Supporting Organizations are currently three: the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) that deals with policy making on generic top – level domains (gTLDs); the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) deals with policy making on country – code top – level domains (ccTLDs) and the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) deals with policy making on IP addresses.
ICANN also relies on some advisory committees to receive advice on the interests and needs of stakeholders that do not directly participate in the Supporting Organization. The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which is composed of representatives of a great number of national governments from the entire world. At – Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), that composed of representatives of organizations of individual Internet users from the entire world. The Root Server System Advisory Committee, providing advice on the operation of the DNS root server system; the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), composed of Internet experts who study security issues pertaining to ICANN’s mandate; and the Technical Liaison Group(TLG), composed of representatives of other international technical organizations of the Internet.
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