White House says naming handover on track

Magaziner told reporters at a Geneva conference he is optimistic the government will meet a September 30 deadline to end its control over the Domain Name System, according to a Dow Jones News Service report. The DNS handles the allocation of Internet addresses, such as www.whitehouse.gov.

Magaziner and others were in Geneva for the annual meeting of the Internet Society, which is beginning a round of talks on a possible new system. The government wants to hand over control to a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, and a few weeks ago put it to the Internet community to decide how that organization should be created and run.

As of yet, no consensus has been reached on the new organization.

Right now registration of the most popular domain names, .com, .net and .org, is monopolized by Network Solutions Inc., under contract to the government. Network Solutions representatives have said they will continue to run the business the same way after the handover.

Also at the Internet Society meeting, French government representatives argued that the new DNS body should be approved by international governments, saying it is the only way the new body can claim undisputed legitimacy, Dow Jones reported.