Testimony of Assistant Secretary Strickling on Protecting Internet Freedom: Implications of Ending U.S. Oversight of the Internet

For almost 20 years, Democratic and Republican Administrations, with bipartisan support from Congress, have worked closely with businesses, civil society groups, governments, and technical experts to develop a multistakeholder, private sector-led system for the global coordination of the Internet domain name system (DNS). The National Telecommunications and Information Administrations (NTIA’s) announcement in 2014 initiated the final step in the privatization process by asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to convene global stakeholders to develop a transition plan. The two years of effort by the Internet multistakeholder community to develop the transition plan reflect truly historic and unprecedented work. The plan developed by the community has strengthened the multistakeholder process and holds ICANN even more directly accountable to the customers of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and to the broader Internet community. The proposal also ensures the continued leadership of the private sector in making decisions related to the technical underpinnings of the Internet.

The time to transition the IANA functions is now, and I urge this Congress to once again demonstrate strong support for the multistakeholder process related to Internet governance.