IANA Functions Stewardship Transition

The IANA Functions Stewardship Transition is a process and community discussion regarding the transition of IANA functions stewardship from its historical contract with the United States government's NTIA to the global Internet community. The process and discussion is spearheaded by ICANN and its various stakeholder groups, and was catalyzed by an announcement in March 2014 by NTIA that they would be relinquishing the stewardship to the Internet community.

NTIA Announcement

In March 2014 NTIA released a statement that they are intent on transitioning their part of the IANA functions away from NTIA and to the global stakeholder community. The first step in this process is for ICANN to convene stakeholders and create a proposal for how the IANA functions will remain secure and unwavering. The press release outlined a number of principles which the ICANN-community drafted proposal must meet:

• Must Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
• Must Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
• Must Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and,
• Must Maintain the openness of the Internet.

The current NTIA contract with ICANN expires on 30 September, 2014, and members of the ICANN community took that date as a deadline for drafting and agreeing on a proposal.

ICANN subsequently published their own press release that applauded NTIA's announcement and called it a recognition of the U.S. government to ICANN's "maturation in becoming an effective multistakeholder organization".

Global media outlets picked up on the NTIA press release, with many United States media reporting that the United States Government was "giving up control of the Internet".

ICANN Community Discussion

After the NTIA announcement, discussion began among ICANN's various stakeholders regarding how the stewardship of the IANA functions should be transitioned and to what entity or entities. Various sessions and panels focused on this topic at ICANN 49 - Singapore and continued at ICANN 50 - London. It was also a topic of much discussion in organizations and conferences such as NETmundial, ISOC, IETF, Internet Governance Forum, and the United Nations.