Internet Association Confident in IANA Transition, ICANN's Ability to Enforce Contracts

The internet industry continues to support the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition because it “aligns the interests of internet users, prevents capture by any one stakeholder group or government such as China or Russia, and lays the foundation for a stable and secure internet,” said Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman in response to questions. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, had sent follow-up questions about Beckerman’s testimony during a May Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the IANA transition. Rubio backed delaying the IANA transition during the hearing, in which Beckerman and several others strongly backed going forward with the transition as planned for Oct. 1 (see 1605240067). Beckerman responded to Rubio’s concerns about ICANN’s commitment to mitigate Domain Name System abuse via contract enforcement, saying IA “firmly supports the ability of ICANN to enforce its contracts with registries and registrars.” It's in IA’s interest “to prevent abusive behavior in” the DNS, Beckerman said: “Because the ICANN community is now empowered to challenge action or inaction by the [ICANN board] and is developing additional accountability mechanisms” via the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s, work on a second set of accountability mechanism changes will make it “possible to ensure that the Board is exercising oversight that results in ICANN’s proper execution of its enforcement role according to ICANN’s bylaws.” Beckerman also said aspects of a set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms for the IANA transition preserved the entity's ability to enforce its existing contracts: “ICANN has a narrow technical remit and, as ICANN CEO Göran Marby recently pledged, does not have the authority or capability to ‘interpret or enforce laws regulating websites or website content.’”