The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a global multistakeholder organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and operational procedures of the internet’s domain name system (DNS), as well as the allocation and assignment of IP addresses and other unique identifiers.
It is a private, non-profit corporation headquartered in the United States. ICANN’s role is to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet, and it also has a policy-making function, defining policies for how the ‘names and numbers’ of the internet should run. ICANN plays a crucial role in overseeing the global internet’s systems of unique identifiers, facilitating the coordination of the operation and evolution of the DNS root name server system, and ensuring the stable and secure operation of these systems.