The US government is to surrender its control of internet’s underlying technology this year, giving up the administration of Internet IPs & Domain Names and moving towards a more global governance. For the first time since American academics launched the network 47 years ago, the gate-keeping of online addresses will be decentralized to include foreign governments, businesses and individual users, in a symbolic move that is made to reflect the integrity of the system that allows access to the World Wide Web. The Independent reports: The non-profit body which administrates domain names and internet protocol addresses (IPs) globally is set to become independent from the US Department of Commerce on September 30, after nearly 20 years of fighting for decentralization. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will instead be governed by a “multi-stakeholder” model, including businesses, individual users and members of foreign governments. The CEO of ICANN, which does not control internet content but is akin to a “traffic cop” checking that network addresses are securely registered and function properly, has played down the move. “People have aggrandized the role of the US government in what we do”, Fadi Chehadé told AFP. “But the change is actually minimal. It’s important [...]