US government signs pact with Internet domain body

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 - The U.S. government and the body in charge of assigning Internet addresses signed an agreement on Wednesday that allows for greater global participation in the Internet domain name process.

The U.S. Commerce Department said it reached an agreement with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that puts an end to a series of short-term agreements and provides stability for companies Verisign Inc and Go Daddy that sell domains and maintain extensions like ".com".

The agreement comes months after the European Union said ICANN should be delinked from the U.S. government and made fully independent to allow for a more global participation.

"The pie actually became bigger" for greater involvement from other governments, said Larry Strickland, administrator of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, who signed the agreement.

Before the signing the U.S. government wanted certain conditions -- largely driven by concerns from lawmakers -- to be met before reaching an agreement, including keeping ICANN a nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States.

Set up in 1998, ICANN was operating under the aegis of the Commerce Department, an arrangement that raised concerns by some that said the Internet is not seen as belonging to a wider global constituency. It decides on what names can be added to the Internet's top level domains (TLDs) such as .com.

Even with the looser relationship, the U.S. government will take part in reviews of ICANN, which is expected to start taking hundreds of applications for new TLDs early next year.

Key U.S. lawmakers who had previously raised concerns praised the agreement.

U.S. Representative Rick Boucher, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, said the agreement will ensure transparency and accountability from ICANN and include periodic reviews of ICANN's performance.

The European Union also welcomed the agreement. "This is a significant positive move towards a new and more open 'working environment' for ICANN and this document provides a good basis for further improvements," Swedish Infrastructure Minister Asa Torstensson said in a statement.