ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an organization of non-profit private law. The staff and participants come from all over the world. It is in charge of assigning the Internet protocol (IP) address space, attributing the protocol identifiers, managing the domain name system at the first level for generic codes (gTLD ) and national codes (ccTLD), and assuring the management functions of root servers’ system. These services were initially assured in the framework of a contract with the American federal government by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other organizations. Now ICANN assumes IANA’s functions.

What is ICANN?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an organization of non-profit private law. The staff and participants come from all over the world. It is in charge of assigning the Internet protocol (IP) address space, attributing the protocol identifiers, managing managing the domain name system at the first level for generic codes (gTLD ) and national codes (ccTLD), and assuring the management functions of root servers’ system. These services were initially assured in the framework of a contract with the American federal government by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other organization. Now ICANN assumes IANA’s functions.

As a Public Private Partnership, ICANN has a mission to protect the operational stability of the Internet, to promote the competition, assure a global representation of the Internet communities, and develop a corresponding policy to the mission following a bottom-up consensual approach.

What is the domain name system?

The system domain name (Domain Name System - DNS) help the users to browse the Internet. Every computer connected with Internet has a unique address called "IP address" (Internet protocol address). The given IP addresses (a series of figures) are difficult to memorize, DNS allows to use a series of familiar letters (the "domain name"). For example, instead o typing “192.0.34.163", you can type www.icann.org.

DNS transfers the domain name which you type in the corresponding IP address and connects you to the searched Web site. DNS also allows the smooth running of the e-mail, so that the e-mail you send reaches the recipient.

What is the role of the ICANN?

ICANN is in charge of coordinating the DNS technical elements’ management to assure the "universal resolution" ("universal resolvability"), so that all the Internet users can find all the valid addresses. To do it, ICANN monitors the distribution of the unique technical identifiers used in the Internet operations and the affectation of the domain names at the first level (such as .com.info, etc.).

Other questions concerning the Internet users, such as rules related to the financial transactions, the control of the Internet contents, the electronic messages with commercial unrequested ("spam") characteristics and data protection, do not fit within the framework of ICANN’s technical coordination responsibilities.