ICANN plays the name game with domain names

The group that manages the Internet's domain-name system is facing a real test of confidence. The Commerce Department is weighing whether to renew the contract under which the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers performs technical functions that help make the Web run smoothly.

This contract, under which ICANN runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, expires at the end of March. The contract covers such tasks as doling out the pool of Internet protocol numbers connecting computers to the Web. But on a more basic level, the IANA contract is the only concrete leverage the U.S. government still has over ICANN, which it picked in 1998 to take over management of the Internet's domain-name system. "It is the one clear area that the Department of Commerce, without question, has authority in regard to ICANN," said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of government relations for the Association of National Advertisers.