Remarks of Assistant Secretary Strickling at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

I am sure that everyone in the audience knows that recently, the Internet multistakeholder community completed its work on the IANA transition plan including measures to enhance ICANN’s accountability. ICANN formally transmitted the transition package to NTIA March 10. We have now begun the process of reviewing the proposal to determine whether it meets the criteria we outlined when we announced the transition. Just to remind all of you, when we announced the transition two years ago, we established specific conditions that we said that the plan must satisfy. First, the proposal must support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet governance, in that it should be developed by the multistakeholder community and have broad community support. More specifically, we will not accept a transition proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution. Second, the proposal must maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the domain name system. Third, it must meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services. And finally, it must maintain the openness of the Internet.