Alternatives to ICANN

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Alternatives to ICANN have been suggested for managing the DNS namespace and the address space, also known as "Dot 2.0". Alternatives that have been suggested include:

Letting the US Government do it for themselves
Assigning the job to the ITU
Creating a new UN agency to manage the functions
Letting the Regional Internet Registries manage the addresses
Abandon all control and let the DNS namespace be a free-for-all
Make a more openly democratic, transparent "open source" regulatory "Dot 2.0" body, completely independent of existing (Web 1.0) infrastructures such as ICANN or the ITU

To deal in advance with these possibilities, some people want to create an appropriate application extension for browsers (as Firefox for example, but could potentially be integrated into other existing browser technologies) to open up the Internet TLD namespace, using some or all of the suggested alternatives above

As of February 2006, no single proposal has enough political push behind it to succeed, but the WSIS process and other fora for proposals makes sure the idea is not forgotten.

In addition, a number of private, for-profit firms are trying to "seize the opportunity" of namespace development (i.e., primarily of TLDs). Chief among them are Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot and Bill Gross' long-term Idealab project, New.net. (Such proprietary alternatives are apparently viewed with disdain by ICANN and the other prevailing regulatory bodies.)