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WASHINGTON, DC — Today, ������Ƶ’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) released a on the IANA transition and the U.S. government’s decision to end its formal oversight of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) as early as September 2015.

The IANA transition is an important turning point in the evolution of the global Internet. Because of its technical and legal complexity, however, most people do not understand the full scope of the opportunities it presents or the challenges it poses. That lack of understanding makes it difficult to have an informed public discussion surrounding the transfer of DNS oversight from the U.S. government to the global multistakeholder community. OTI’s latest paper seeks to fill that gap, explaining the evolution of the Internet’s naming and numbering system from the early days of the Internet into a global system managed by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the oversight role that the U.S. government has played in connection with ICANN’s performance of it DNS management functions, and the possible consequences that may flow from current plans to relinquish that oversight role in its entirety.

The paper is the first in a series that aims to help policymakers and the public understand the full scope of the issues at stake in the IANA transition and to describe the substantive and procedural safeguards that need to be in place to ensure that the transition does not undermine the principles of free and open communication on the Internet.

The following can be attributed to , a Senior Fellow at the Open Technology Institute and author of the paper:

“This is a pivotal moment for Internet governance. The U.S. government’s special DNS oversight role has become increasingly difficult to justify in recent years, especially as the Snowden revelations undermined confidence, at home and abroad, that the U.S. is a neutral actor in Internet governance matters. We support the U.S. government’s decision to complete the transition that it began in 1998 to place control of this critical piece of Internet infrastructure into the hands of a non-governmental institution governed by and responsive to the global Internet community. But before that happens key challenges must be addressed to ensure that the DNS continues to run smoothly and that ICANN stays accountable to its many stakeholders and remains focused on technical coordination rather than broader Internet policy issues involving cybersecurity, copyright, online privacy, and the like.”

OTI Senior Policy Analyst , the co-author of the paper, added:

“The IANA transition is about ensuring that the technical system that keeps in the Internet running behind the scenes continues to function properly in the absence of formal oversight from the U.S. government. We hope to shed some light on the complexity of the process and help inform the public discussion that’s happening right now, because getting this transition right is very important — especially if the United States wants to maintain its credibility in the broader global Internet governance ecosystem. A well-managed transition is necessary to minimize the risks to the stability of the DNS, and will benefit all Internet users.”

Read the here.