The US government announced on Friday that they will not renew the existing contract between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN for the IANA functions.  The current contract expires on September 30, 2015.  This announcement is good news for those who have called for the USG to relinquish their “special oversight ” status in Internet governance.

It is unclear what, if any, effect this will have on the IP addressing world.  IP addressing has always seemed to be at the edge of ICANN’s concerns.

The announcement called for building a plan for the transition and ICANN responded with an announcement about their response to the announcement.

Additional commentary from other news sources:

• NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions
• U.S. Plans to Give Up Oversight of Web Domain Manager
• In sudden announcement, US to give up control of DNS root zone
• U.S. to Cede Its Oversight of Addresses on Internet