In a historic decision on Friday, the United States has decided to give up control of the authoritative root zone file, which contains all names and addresses of all top-level domain names.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), under the United States Department of Commerce, has retained ultimate control of the domain name system (DNS) since transitioning it from a government project into private hands in 1997. With Commerce’s blessing, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) acts as the primary essential governing body for Internet policy.

The new change is in advance of the upcoming ICANN meeting to be held in Brazil in April 2014. Brazil and other nations have fumed at revelations of American spying on its political leaders and corporations, which were first revealed in September 2013 as the result of documents distributed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The South American country also threatened to build its “own cloud,” as a consequence of the NSA’s spying.

Commerce’s contract with ICANN to act as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority will expire on September 30, 2015—for now, ICANN’s role will not change.

“The timing is right to start the transition process,” wrote Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Lawrence E. Strickling, in a statement published late Friday. “We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”

Stephen D. Crocker, ICANN's Board Chair, wrote in another statement, "Even though ICANN will continue to perform these vital technical functions, the US has long envisioned the day when stewardship over them would be transitioned to the global community. In other words, we have all long known the destination. Now it is up to our global stakeholder community to determine the best route to get us there."

In a late Friday evening conference call, ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé lauded the decision as "historic" and said that ICANN will be moving toward multi-stakeholder control. Chehadé said the US will not permit another country to make an exclusive contract like the US' when 2015 rolls around, however. "The US will not hand their role to a government, a group of governments, or an inter government group... they are not saying that they'd exclude governments—governments are welcome, all governments are welcome as equal partners with all the other members of our community."

Naturally, journalists on the call asked whether the sudden and stunning change was brought about by new pressures after the leaks made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. But Chehadé and Crocker, who was also on the call, offered evasive answers.

"I think what is important to focus on today is the trust in the global community that is displayed in the US' decision here," Chehadé told the press. "There is now full trust in the superiority of the multi-stakeholder model, the open model that enabled the Internet to be what it is today. That's the news today, really."

For his part, Crocker maintained that ICANN's transition out of US hands was a long time coming, and that today's announcement didn't have anything to do with Snowden. "It's equally as possible that we would have gotten here even sooner without him," Crocker said.

On its website, the NTIA cited a 1998 Commerce Department policy (PDF), which states that the US was “committed to a transition that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS management.” Sarah Horowitz, an NTIA spokesperson, also declined to answer what had brought about such an abrupt shift to American policy.

That same 1998 policy also states: “The US Government would prefer that this transition be complete before the year 2000. To the extent that the new corporation is established and operationally stable, September 30, 2000 is intended to be, and remains, an ‘outside’ date.”

For now, many American officials appear to be passing this transition off as merely an exercise in good stewardship.

“NTIA’s announcement today that it is beginning the process of transferring additional domain name functions to ICANN is the next phase in this transition,” wrote Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) in a statement. “It is also consistent with other efforts the US and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”

It seems that at least some of the major figures in Internet policy were unaware of the sudden change. Larry Landweber, a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and who helped create ICANN, said he was surprised to hear the sudden news.

"I bet I have some of the same questions you have," Bob Kahn, the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, also told Ars.

The man considered the father of the Korean Internet, Kilnam Chon, a professor emeritus at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science Technology, and also a professor at Keio University in Japan, told Ars that this "brilliant move" has "been overdue."

"This [advances] Internet governance to the next phase," he said by e-mail. "I hope the US Congress [won't be able to] stop the move."

UPDATE Saturday 8:48am CT: Vint Cerf, the other co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, and now a vice president and "Internet evangelist" at Google, e-mailed Ars to say that he also applauded the shift. Cerf was also the chair of ICANN from 2000 until 2007.

"The announced change would ultimately eliminate the contract between ICANN and NTIA and leave it to ICANN and the Internet community to create a transparency and accountability regime that is rooted in the multistakeholder model of administration," he wrote. "The Affirmation of Commitment (AOC) might be revised in such a way that any interested government could sign on to a relationship with ICANN. The AOC is not an oversight relationship. Rather, it is a mutual commitment by ICANN and a government to recognize one another's responsibilities regarding the Internet, within the context of ICANN's specific role (PDF)."

"This is a major step towards implementing a global, multistakeholder system of Internet administration."

Additional reporting by Megan Geuss.