Since the U.S. Department of Defense first created Arpanet, the Internet’s predecessor, in 1968, the U.S. has maintained control of the Internet’s IP numbering network, the domain name system (DNS), and the massive database that links the two to ensure that Internet traffic goes where it’s supposed to. The U.S. Department of Commerce has assumed actual control of the Internet, but since 1998 it has contracted with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to do the actual work.

That contract must be renewed every three years and is scheduled to expire in September 2015. Friday’s announcement that the U.S. would turn over control to an international body assumes that such a body will be in place by the expiration of the ICANN contract. If that does not happen, the contract with ICANN can be extended.

There have been plenty of complaints over the years about the U.S. government’s insistence that the U.S. maintain control of the addressing and naming schemes for the global internet. Edward Snowden’s revelations of widespread surveillance of Internet traffic by the U.S. National Security Agency has increased calls for the U.S. to give up control of the Internet.

The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said in its Friday press release that the U.S. “will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.” That means no United Nations- or country-led organization.

Because ICANN is charged with creating the replacement organization, what seems most likely to happen is that an international body of some kind will be set up to provide strategic direction to — wait for it — ICANN.

U.S. conservatives have already fired a few salvos at the plan. Here’s former House speaker Newt Gingrich in a tweet cited by the Washington Post:

What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.

Since the establishment of ICANN in 1998, the U.S. government has been “committed to a transition that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS management.” According to the NTIA’s press release:

ICANN as an organization has matured and taken steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency and its technical competence. At the same time, international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as evidenced by the continued success of the Internet Governance Forum and the resilient stewardship of the various Internet institutions.

In the federal government’s view, it’s not Snowden’s revelations that have led to the proposed handover, it’s the maturity of the Internet itself. Right.

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