ICANN
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a non-profit organization founded in 1998. It is responsible for IP (Internet Protocol) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, and generic and country-code TLDs (top-level domains).
See the domain suffix listing for a full list of domain suffixes approved by ICANN.
How is ICANN pronounced?
ICANN is an acronym that's pronounced as eye-can.
Does ICANN handle individual IPs?
No. It would be impossible for any single company or organization to handle the billions of different IP addresses. Instead of handling addresses individually, ICANN is responsible for assigning blocks of IP addresses to companies. After these blocks of addresses are assigned out by ICANN, the company assigned that block is responsible for assigning each IP address. For example, your ISP (Internet service provider) is assigned one or more blocks of IP addresses by ICANN, and then the ISP assigns you one of the available IP addresses from their block.
Computer acronyms, DNS, Domain, Internet, Internet terms, Internic, Network terms, WHOIS