Competing Root Servers Threaten ICANN Control

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September 24, 1999 (4:43 PM EDT)

Competing Root Servers Threaten ICANN Control

By Mary Mosquera,

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Internet groups and computer professionals questioned Friday whether the Internet could run on competing roots instead of a single, shared root system in a move to break the control exercised by the group charged with its administration.

Critics of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, some of whom want to change it and others who want to tear it down, met around the issue of "Governing the Commons: The Future of Global Internet Administration," sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a public interest group.

ICANN is the organization to which the U.S. government transferred administration of the technical functions of the Internet, including the single root system, a year ago. The non-profit group is also charged with promoting competition in domain names .com, .org, and .net, which until recently were handled exclusively by Network Solutions in Herndon, Va.

Five other companies are now registering the popular domain names and dozens more have been accredited by ICANN. An often-delayed testbed period will end Sept. 30, once NSI and the Commerce Department settle overhanging price and control issues.

Many say ICANN, directed by an unelected initial board, essentially will govern and make policy for the Internet, besides handling technical functions. The sentiment that ICANN has too much power and is out of control was the focus of a congressional hearing during the summer.

"The problem is ICANN plowed ahead, trying to be efficient and getting things done. And now they're entangled in legitimacy issues," said Hans Klein, assistant professor at Georgia Tech and chairman of the computer professionals group sponsoring the conference. In adhering to a rapid time table to be up and running, ICANN's initial nine-member board is making policy before any members have been elected.

The sentiment is that large corporate interests are favored, despite assurances of consensus. Legitimacy issues combined with closed meetings and a lack of transparency and accountability have generated distrust among small Internet companies and public-interest groups, Klein said.

Further enflaming the situation is the fragile financial situation in which ICANN finds itself. Beset with bills and no mechanism in which to raise money for its administration, ICANN is subsisting on loans and contributions.

After an outcry, ICANN shelved its plan to charge $1 per domain name per year to fund itself. There are those that want to sustain ICANN out of fear the U.S. government may take back Internet administration if agreement cannot be found, Klein said, and those that worry about the stability of the Internet with so much discord surrounding its administering group.

"If you don't have a single root, you don't need a single organization," Klein said, referring to the architecture that sends data to the correct addresses. "The best solution to the social and political questions here is engineering, a technical fix," Klein said, with a view toward autonomous competing root servers.

Tamar Frankel, Boston University law professor, said ICANN should be accountable to a third party, such as the World Court. ICANN has a problem with micro-managing, and planned elections of nine at-large Internet stakeholders is not enough to erase the initial board's rigidity, she said.

"We need a single, not-for profit, government agnostic entity," said Rich Forman, CEO of register.com, the first registrar to dilute NSI's monopoly. Mistakes are to be expected and there is a rapid time table, he said, urging dissidents to participate and change ICANN from within.