Internet Administration-Who Owns It

Nobody owns Internet. The Internet, with its roots primarily in the research domain, has evolved and gained a broader user base with significant commercial activity. Various groups taht coordinate Internet issues have guided this growth and development.

• Internet Society (ISOC). http://www.isoc.org/ The Internet Society is an international, non profit organization formed in 1992 to provide support for the Internet standards process. ISOC accomplishes this through maintaining and supporting other Internet administrative bodies such as IAB, IETF, IRTF, and IANA. ISOC also promotes research and other scholarly activities relating to the Internet.
• Internet Architecture Board (IAB). http://www.iab.org/  The Internet Architecture Board is the technical advisor ISOC. The main purposes of the IAB are to oversee the continuous development of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite and to serve in technical advisory capacity to research members of the Internet community. IAB accomplishes this through its two primary components, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task force (IRTF). Another responsibility of the IAB is the editorial management of the RFCs. IAB is also the external liaison between the Internet and other standards organizations and forums.
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). http://www.ietf.org/ The Internet Engineering Task Force is a forum of working groups managed by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). IETF is responsible for identifying operational problems and proposing solutions to these problems. IETF also develops and reviews specifications intended as Internet standards. The working groups are collected into areas, and each area concentrates on a specific topic. Currently nine areas have been defined, although this is by no means hard and fast number. The areas are: Applications, Internet Protocols, Routing, Operations, User Services, Network Management, Transport, Internet protocol next generation (IPng), and Security
• Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). http://www.irtf.org/  The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is a forum of working groups managed by the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). IRTF focuses on long-term research topics related to Internet protocols, applications, architecture, and technology.
• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). http://www.icann.org/  The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), supported by the U.S. government, was responsible for the management of Internet domain names and addresses until October 1998. At that time the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), aprivate nonprofit corporation managed by an international board, assumed IANA operations.
• Network Information Center (NIC). The NIC is responsible for collecting and distributing information about TCP/IP protocols.

Above were the main organisations that administers Internet.

Related Posts:

• Internet Introduction and Overview.
• Internet Standards and RFC