The Obama Administration decided it was time to migrate IANA oversight to a global stakeholder model rather than have any one government do so.
The current NTIA contract with ICANN expires at the end of September, but there remain issues with testing the logistics of the handoff—the technical aspects of how the U.S. role in verifying of new names will be handled. ICANN will get back to NTIA Aug. 12 on how that is going and whether the handoff can be achieved by the end of September or whether they need more time—the contract can be extended.
Read More“Some members of Congress have lingering doubts about this transition, but the protections are in place – to include ICANN's headquarters remaining in the U.S. – to ensure that free expression and free enterprise will prevail in the domain name system at the core of the Internet.” ...