ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) operates under the wings of the U.S. department of commerce to provide technical operations of vital domain name system (DNS) resources, as well as define policies for how the Internet’s “names and numbers” should be chosen and used.
Prior to ICANN, Jonathan Bruce Postal, a computer scientist who contributed heavily to the development of the Internet, controlled the Internet’s DNS system process. When Jonathan passed away in 1998, the DNS process was passed over to ICANN.
While ICANN has been managing the Internet’s operations of DNS resources for over a decade, they’re ready to get out of the business and turn the operations over to a group of stakeholders, including governments, private corporations, and other various companies interested in managing the whole DNS system.
The U.S. department of commerce plans to pass the DNS system onto another organization, which would receive input from other countries to assist with the handling of the DNS system. Many foreign organizations have been waiting for this for a long time, because in their view, the US has controlled too much of the Internet for far too long.
For example, the Internet had a limited number of suffixes, such as “.edu, .com, and .gov” for a long time. And many foreign countries wanted a say in how many other suffixes could be made, however, the US department of commerce didn’t allow this to avoid confusion and an explosion of spam.
Today, there’s a wide range of suffixes available on the Internet, including country suffixes to provide insight into the website’s origin. This actually helps many of us to avoid spam-filled websites, because we know what countries develop a massive amount of spam and malware, so we avoid those websites.
To learn more about ICANN, give us a call at (831) 753-7677 or send us an email at [email protected]. Alvarez Technology Group can help you stay up to date on the latest news regarding the Internet’s DNS system.
