Guiding Principles

The 1998 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce governs how ICANN would handle the functions it's responsible for as an independent and international organization.

The MoU spelled out the following guiding principles for ICANN:

• Internet stability: ICANN would manage domain registries, IP addresses and other internet identifiers to ensure a stable networking environment.
• Competition: ICANN would manage DNS in a way that promotes customer choice and competition.
• Bottom-up consensus: ICANN would use consensus-based processes to meet the needs of individual internet users and the internet.
• Representation: ICANN would promote efforts to be representative of all members of the internet community while meeting the needs of those groups.