Remarks of Assistant Secretary Strickling at the Internet Governance Forum Opening Session

Nearly 20 years ago, the United States promised to privatize the Internet's domain name system. Two years ago, the United States announced its intent to complete the privatization once the multistakeholder community developed a consensus plan for that transition. The transition was discussed in great deal at the IGF in Istanbul in 2014 and again last year in Joao Pessoa. Today I am pleased to appear here at IGF 2016 to report that the transition is now complete and was completed as of October 1, 2016.

The United States Government now stands on an equal footing with all other governments with respect to ICANN and the domain name system. The challenge now before us is how we can expand and evolve the multistakeholder approach. Can we build on the success of the IANA transition and the outcome of the 10-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society to tackle other Internet policy challenges? To do this, we must understand and adhere to the attributes of a successful multistakeholder model.