The Ukrainian government’s plea to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for revocation of Russian domains has been rejected. On Wednesday, 2nd March 2022,…
In a nutshell: Ukraine wants Russia’s internet access revoked, but doing so is difficult due to the net’s decentralized nature and could destabilize its core foundations. The Ukrainian government’s plea to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for revocation of Russian domains has been rejected. On Wednesday,2nd March 2022, Göran Marby, President of ICANN, replied to the government of Ukraine that it did not have the authority to grant its request to disconnect Russia from the internet. This is a rare instance of an organization acting in Russia’s favor, more so at a time when many others are taking drastic measures to pressurize the Russian economy and force the country’s armed forces into an immediate ceasefire. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, abbreviated as ICANN, is an American non-profit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and operational procedures of the internet’s Domain Naming System (DNS), introduction of new Top-Level Domains (TLD), and the operation of root name servers. It officially came into existence on 30th September 1998 and is currently headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has urged ICANN to revoke Russian domains, including.ru,.рф, and.su domains. Requests were also made to “contribute to the revoking for SSL certificates” of those domains and take down Russia’s root DNS servers, helping disrupt internet access across the Russian Federation, which invaded Ukraine on 24th February 2022.
