ICANN

What is the meaning of ICANN?

The meaning of ICANN: ICANN, an abbreviation of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a not-for-profit organization that is in-charge of assigning IP addresses and maintaining the domain name system worldwide. ICANN has headquarters in Marina del Rey, California, United States. Each device, such as a web server, printer and personal computer that connects to the Internet uses an IP address to do so. Since it would not be pragmatic for ICANN to directly allocate an IP number to every Internet-connected device, the corporation assigns IP address blocks to ISPs (internet Service Providers), academic institutions and companies. These trustees further assign their allocated IP addresses to devices that connect to the Internet.

Even though ICANN is an organization based in the US, it conducts its businesses for the Internet community worldwide. Its mission is to preserve the Internet’s operational stability; to promote healthy competition; to achieve far-reaching representation of the Internet communities worldwide; and to develop necessary policies to fulfill its mission.

ICANN was incorporated in 1998 to handle Internet-related duties that were done previously by other organizations on behalf of the US government. Since the arrangement, the organization has been supervising domain name registration system, harmonizing the decentralization of domain name registration system and its integration into the International community.