Memorandum of Understanding

In November 1998, the Department of Commerce entered into an agreement with ICANN in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) under which the two parties agreed to collaborate on a joint transition project to transfer control over the Domain Name System (DNS) from the U.S. government to ICANN. The Department emphasized that the MOU was an essential means for the Department to ensure the continuity and stability of the domain name management functions that were then being performed by, or on the behalf of, the U.S. government.

The MOU stated that before making a transition to private sector management, the Department required assurances that the private sector has the capability and resources to manage the domain name system. To gain these assurances, the Department and ICANN agreed in the MOU to complete a set of transition tasks. The Department’s tasks mainly relate to providing advice, coordination with foreign governments, and general oversight of the transition. ICANN agreed to undertake tasks that call for it to design, develop, and test procedures that could be used to manage the domain name system. Collectively, ICANN’s tasks addressed all four of the transition’s guiding principles as set forth in the White paper.

Progress on and completion of each task was to be assessed by the Department on a case-by-case basis, with input from ICANN. Any amendments to the MOU, such as removing tasks, had to be approved by both parties. However, the Department retained responsibility for determining when management of the domain name system will be transitioned to ICANN, using the procedures tested during the transition.

The original MOU was scheduled to expire on September 2000. Because work on the transition was not completed within the original transition time frame, the MOU was amended several times, and its time frame extended twice. The amended MOU was set to expire in September 2002.