Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - technical definition

Created in 1998 by Jon Postel in response to the U.S. Department of CommerceÂ’s call for a private sector, nonprofit agency to be formed to administer the Internet name and address system policy. ICANN is responsible for the management of the DNS system, the administration of the IP address space, the management of the root servers, and the assigning of protocol parameters. ICANNÂ’s board consists of 19 directors and nine at-large directors having one-year terms.

See Also: Domain Name System (DNS).