On February 25, 2015, the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on "Preserving the Multistakeholder Model of Internet Governance," during which it heard testimony regarding the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Stewardship Transition and enhancing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) accountability processes that have commanded significant attention of the global Internet community over the last year. During the hearing, testimony was presented by Fadi Chehadé, ICANN President and CEO; Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA); and Ambassador David Gross, former US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy for the US Department of State. The following is a brief summary and analysis of this hearing.

The Senate Committee members were keenly interested in learning more about the IANA transition process, and in particular...