India Questions U.S. Dominance Over Critical Internet Resources

NEW DELHI – India expressed reservationsover control of critical internetresources like allocation of domainnames by a US contracted entity, sayingthis cannot really be reflectiveof the internationalcharacter or community ofinternet users.Deputy National SecurityAdvisor Nehchal Sandhusaid internet has become aglobal phenomenon andtherefore its managementmust reflect this universalityand diversity.Sandhu said under the existinginstitutional architecturefor internet governance, theInternational Corporation for AssignedNames and Numbers (ICANN) performstwo functions — the InternetAssigned Names Authority (IANA)whereby it controls entries to theauthoritative Root Zone File of theInternet and secondly the managementof the Domain Name System (DNS)including allocation of Top LevelDomain (TLD) names.He said the technical standardsare set by the InternetEngineering Task Force(IETF) and the central elementsof the internet’s logicalinfrastructure like theCritical Internet Resource,”is managed by a privateentity under contractualarrangements with the USGovernment”.”This cannot really be saidto be truly representative orreflective of the international characteror community of internet users,” he saidat a seminar on “Internet to EquinetEmpowering a Billion Online” organisedby FICCI.