Europe celebrates that ICANN will no longer depend exclusively on U.S.

The European Commission (EC) has welcomed the announcement that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN in English), starting tomorrow, will be controlled by independent groups and not by the United States unilaterally.
In this way, explained the European Commissioner for Information Society Viviane Reding said in a statement, the Internet will be "more independent, responsible and internationally."
ICANN, a private non-profit foundation established in California (USA), has until now operated through an agreement with the Department of Commerce United States, which expired today.

But the U.S. government has decided not to extend that contract, and adopt a "declaration of commitment" in conjunction with ICANN.
In practice, this change represents "a major reform" since, as explained Brussels, the agency will no longer be subject to unilateral U.S. oversight and will be monitored by independent groups to be attended by governments around the world .

These groups will be appointed by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN, which the EU will play an "active role", and ICANN itself, the EU executive explained.
The tasks of this body include the network structure and its domain-the final letters of the address as ". Com." Is ".-, or the assignment of IP protocol addresses, the number that identifies computers on the Internet.

This amendment fills a long-standing demand of Brussels since 2005, has repeatedly called such reform, "required" to achieve important public interest goals such as freedom of expression or stability of commercial transactions online.
The EU executive has committed itself "vigorously" to support implementation of the reform announced today and to work on it.

The "ICANN seems now much more independent and responsible on paper. Working together to ensure that is the case in practice," Reding stressed.