At the heart of the internet, with all of its dot coms, orgs, and edus, is a database which essentially serves as a address book for the internet. This database, called a root zone file, translates disparatenews.com into the IP address associated with my web host. In a letter dated July 30, 2008, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said it is “not in discussions with either party to change the respective roles of the Department, ICANN or VeriSign regarding the management of the authoritative root zone file, nor do we have any plans to undertake such discussions.” This means very little to the average user, but should annoy counties like Brazil and China, which had hoped for the United Nations to establish an independent, international oversight body.
Source: “US Not Giving Up Oversight of Domain Name Root File,” DomainNews.com.