Internet Infrastructure - Institutions Overseeing Internet Infrastructure

INSTITUTIONS OVERSEEING INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE

In addition to the technical pieces of the Internet infrastructure, there are several organizations that regulate different aspects of it, or that seek to improve its stability and functionality. The Internet Society is a professional society that "provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB)." The society's mission is "to assure the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world."

According to the IAB, that organization is a technical advisory group whose responsibilities include providing "oversight of the architecture for the protocols and procedures used by the Internet." It "acts as a source of advice and guidance to the Board of Trustees and Officers of the Internet Society concerning technical, architectural, procedural, and (where appropriate) policy matters pertaining to the Internet and its enabling technologies." The IETF is "a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet."

Several other organizations were involved in overseeing the Internet in the early 2000s. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) was a nonprofit organization that administered and registered IP numbers for North America, South America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Two other regional Internet registries, Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) were responsible for administration and registration for the rest of the world.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was a non-profit corporation "formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities." Domain names were assigned to people or organizations through a registration process performed by a number of different registrars accredited by ICANN. A company called Network Solutions was responsible for keeping track of registered domain names to avoid duplication.

Finally, the World Wide Web Consortium was an organization responsible for developing "interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential as a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding," and the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) collected, monitored, and analyzed information about Internet traffic patterns and performance that was useful to researchers, educators, and policy makers in a variety of fields.