The IANA Transition at Five

Just five years ago, in September 2016, a significant change in the operation of the internet occurred. Known as the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) transition, it involved the U.S. government giving up the last vestiges of its direct oversight of the World Wide Web and, more particularly, its unique avenue for exerting influence over the management of the internet’s Domain Name System (or DNS). At the end of the transition, a private nongovernmental organization—the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)—assumed full responsibility for managing the DNS.

Much about the change was uncertain. Some observers portrayed the transition as more ministerial than momentous. Others expressed grave concerns about the effect the change would have on the system’s political stability. Still others were more sanguine, and some were even enthusiastic at the prospect of empowering a new, international, multi-stakeholder organization, beholden to no national government, with authority to manage the network. But all who were engaged in the project were,

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