http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/technology/internet/13iht-icann13.html?_r=1&hpw New Chief Defends U.S. Base for Agency That Manages Web Rod Beckstrom spoke after he was announced as the next chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in June. PARIS — The U.S.-based agency that regulates Internet addresses, facing criticism that it is too America-centric, remains the best guardian of a “single, unified, global Internet,” according its new chief executive. Rod Beckstrom, a technology entrepreneur and former U.S. government Internet security official, took over this month as head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, succeeding Paul Twomey, an Australian. As use of the Internet expands around the world, there have been rising calls for a new way of overseeing some of its basic functions, including the allocation of domain suffixes like .com and .org. This duty, and other important technical functions, have been in the hands of Icann, a private, nonprofit organization based in Marina Del Rey, California, for the past decade, under an agreement with the U.S. Commerce Department. “There will always be different voices out there, but the ultimate proof that Icann is functioning properly is that the Internet is functioning properly,” Mr. Beckstrom said by telephone last week. One critic of Icann, the European Union media and telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, recently called for a severing of Icann’s links with the U.S. government when the current agreement with the Commerce Department expires this autumn. Instead, she proposed the creation of a “G-12 for Internet governance” to oversee an independent Icann. “In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world,” Ms. Reding said in May. Ms. Reding also called for the creation of an “independent, international tribunal” to review Icann decisions. Now, any legal challenges generally occur in California courts. “California law is good law for technology,” Mr. Beckstrom said. He said that at a recent Icann meeting in Sydney, there had been discussion of creating an international subsidiary of the organization, possibly based in Switzerland. But he said he would oppose efforts to fragment Icann. “Everyone can’t have it their own way and have it unified,” Mr. Beckstrom said. “Part of the power of the Internet is that the standards that parties have to agree on are so minimal.” Icann has moved over the years to give itself a more international profile, holding three major meetings a year outside the United States. Gatherings are also planned for Seoul in October and Nairobi next March. The organization’s Governmental Advisory Committee, which has representatives from more than 80 countries, has been trying to broaden its membership. China, for instance, recently agreed to rejoin the committee after a five-year absence, Mr. Beckstrom said. Now he is trying to woo another big holdout, Russia. Mr. Beckstrom said he hoped that a plan to allow Internet domain names to be rendered in Cyrillic, set to begin next year, would help. The move to embrace Cyrillic addresses, along with other scripts like Arabic and Chinese, is part of a broader drive by Icann to open up the domain naming system, an initiative that also has its critics. The organization plans to start adding large numbers of new address suffixes, or “global top-level domains,” next year, making it possible to register city or company names like .paris or .nestle. While Icann says the creation of new addresses will help accommodate the international diversification of the Internet, some companies worry that the process will make it harder to protect their brand names. The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, a group based in Washington and representing multinational marketers, says the expansion of domain names could lead to a rise in the practice known as cybersquatting. Joshua Bourne, president of the coalition, called for Icann to “halt all current or future policy initiatives” until a commission, appointed by the U.S. president or Congress, and consisting of government, academic and business representatives, had reviewed its operations. Mr. Bourne said Icann was too beholden to companies that sell and manage actual domain names on behalf of Web sites. Mr. Beckstrom is no stranger to conflict. In March, he left his previous job, as head of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, part of the Homeland Security Department, saying he feared the National Security Agency was seeking too much influence at the center. Before that, Mr. Beckstrom was a technology entrepreneur, starting a company in 1984 that created derivatives trading software, which he sold in 1999. He said he intended to take a pragmatic approach to his new job, rather than moving Icann in new directions. “There is a lot to do,” he said. “My focus very much is going to be to support the execution of these primary tasks.”