The internet’s governing body tells the Ukrainian government it doesn’t have the power to act unilaterally. ‘ICANN does not control internet access or content,’ it says.
A drastic request from Ukraine calling for major Russian internet domains to be revoked has been rejected by ICANN, the California-based nonprofit that helps oversee the internet. On Wednesday, ICANN President Göran Marby told the Ukrainian government his organization had no authority to enact such a request. “Our mission does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the internet —regardless of the provocations,” he wrote in a letter to Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. On Monday, Fedorov made the extraordinary request, which would’ve involved ICANN revoking domains issued to the Russian government, including.ru and.su. In addition, he urged ICANN to shut down Russia’s root DNS servers in the country, which would’ve disrupted local Russian internet users from visiting sites across the web.
