US retains ICANN oversight for three more years
ICANN is the organization that oversees the Domain Naming System of the Internet. For historical reasons, the US government has had oversight of this organization. As noted earlier, there has been pressure from other countries to make ICANN a completely international organization. Nonetheless, the government has decided to keep the oversight in the US Commerce Department for another three years. InfoWorld reports
The Commerce Department remains committed toward eventually giving ICANN full autonomy, it said. However, many observers believe that this full autonomy should have been granted already, because having the U.S. involved in DNS (domain name system) management creates political friction and ultimately slows down the international development of the Internet.
I sort of doubt that the development of the Internet has been much slowed by US management of ICANN but it is clear that continued oversight of the Internet by the US is a politically untenable situation. Other countries are not likely to tolerate the US governance of what should be a truly international function much longer.