First-of-its-kind agreement recognizes mutual responsibilities, supports enhanced Internet stability

Marina del Rey, CA: ICANN and Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) are today announcing the signing of a Mutual Responsibilities Agreement for the operation of the F-root nameserver.

Effective root server operations are an essential component in providing a stable and secure, globally interoperable Internet. ISC is one of twelve global root server operators that provide a key element of the underlying domain name system infrastructure of the Internet. Essentially, root servers provide an authoritative directory ensuring Internet services that are accessed with names, for example the URL www.icann.org or email to [email protected], are translated from human readable names into network addresses that a computer can find. The root server system overall answers well over 100,000 queries per second, providing the first step in determining the requested network address.