Until today, ICANN had monitored domain name assignments under the oversight of the U.S. government, but that deal has expired. Going forward, ICANN will police the DNS with the help of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
ICANN Vice President Paul Levins said that the buck will stop with ICANN, not Washington.
"We've become an organization accountable solely to the Internet community," he said. "We will have review teams made up of people from all over the globe, not just a government sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue, although they will continue to play a crucial part."
The agreement has received support from one of the Internet’s oldest and most visible progenitors, Vint Cerf, better known as “the father of the Internet.”
"The affirmation of commitments by ICANN and [the Department of Commerce] fulfills a long-standing objective of the original formation of ICANN: to create an organization that can serve the world's interest in a robust, reliable and interoperable Internet," Cerf said.
Nevertheless, the deal may not mark a major shift in policy. Joe Hochstuhl of NDTS consulting told XBIZ that the World Trade Organization has been trying to get more involved in the governance of the Internet, and that this deal is merely a move in that direction while giving other countries more of a voice.
“[Last year,] promises were made to expand on international wants and needs,” he said. “I see this as fulfilling those promises. Note that the [Department of Commerce] is not going to completely wash their hands of it. I don't see this as a major policy shift. We might see more expansion in [top-level domains] as well as expanded support for non-English character sets. But a major shift I’m not seeing.”