U.S. company controls domain names; security, governing discussed

Typically, only heads of state and titans of industry get an audience on the 38th floor of the marble-and-glass tower housing the United Nations. So when the president of a California nonprofit corporation with an unwieldy name — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — met last week with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, it signaled the group’s importance in a computer-driven world. ICANN oversees the Domain Name System — such as “.com,” “.net” and “.org” — that allows computers to find each other in cyberspace. It is sanctioned by the United States government, which funded the Internet’s early development. Some countries and activists argue that ICANN is too close to the United States and want the United Nations to take a greater role in regulating the Internet. About 200 diplomats, activists and representatives of companies like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems met at the United Nations to share ideas on whether the Internet should be governed and, if so, how. He met privately with Paul Twomey, the chief executive of ICANN, who would not elaborate on their discussions. The gathering grew from December’s U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, where the world’s leaders failed to reach consensus on governing the Internet and punted the issue to a task force that is supposed to report to Annan in 2005. It ended Saturday with a closed-door meeting of diplomats. Computer industry officials at the meeting were skeptical of a U.N. role, but they agreed that some kind of international body could be useful in coordinating language issues, security and getting the Internet into developing countries. Most believed an international body had no right to regulate the content of Web sites, a concern for countries like China and North Korea. Deputy U.N. Secretary-General Louise Frechette singled out “spam,” network security and privacy as areas where international cooperation was needed.