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The Council also reaffirmed the necessity for a timely and well prepared transfer of the stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function to the multistakeholder community in a way that does not expose this function to capture by narrow commercial or government interests.
Given the significance of the transition of the stewardship of the IANA, and of the related cross-community work on enhancing ICANN's (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accountability, the Council has been following closely the aforementioned process.
The Council recognizes and welcomes the progress achieved to date based on the inputs of the relevant stakeholders, including governments, who have volunteered their time to contribute to the discussions within the tight deadlines. In this respect, the Council supports the open, multi-stakeholder process underway to address these complex issues and emphasises the need to ensure that the final proposal is properly developed.
The current IANA functions contract expires on 30 September 2015, and the Council takes note of the complexity of the transition process. The Council invites the global multi-stakeholder community to make further progress in the development of the transition process and efforts to retain the Internet as a single, open, neutral, free, and un-fragmented network. At the same time, the Council notes that any unjustified delay of this process could negatively impact internet governance debates worldwide.
