• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 12, 2012

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the division of the U.S. Department of Commerce that oversees operation of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), has rejected ICANN’s bid to continue overseeing the IANA functions of the Internet, instead extending ICANN’s current contract for a short six-month period.

“We are cancelling this RFP, because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community," the NTIA said in a statement regarding its request-for-proposals.

The Association of National Advertisers, which has been a pitched battle with ICANN over its new top-level domain registrations, trumpeted the NTIA's move as affirmation of its concerns.

“[It} can only be seen as a clear message to ICANN that it must seriously address concerns by NTIA and multiple global stakeholders. These include federal policymakers, the Association of National Advertisers, Internet security experts, the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight and other stakeholders that have criticized ICANN’s expansion of the domain name system with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of new generic top-level domains,” stated Douglas J. Wood, General Counsel to the ANA, and a partner with Reed Smith LLP.