"I would like to see ICANN go it alone," says Paul Hoffman, director of the VPN Consortium and an active participant in the DNSSEC community. "There's no question they can...The best way is for Commerce to let it go. Then [the Obama Administration] will look modern and new."

Some conservative think tanks and technology industry executives favor continued Commerce Department oversight of ICANN. The Center for Democracy and Technology and TechNet have argued for an extended agreement between ICANN and the U.S. Commerce Department.

ICANN says that even if the JPA expires, it will continue to have oversight from the Commerce Department because it has a separate contract with the agency to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

"The IANA contract, which is more specific than the JPA, gives ICANN control over root server management until 2011," says Kim Davies, manager of root zone services for ICANN. "The U.S. government is going to be monitoring root zone management for some time."

The new Commerce Secretary and NTIA director will need to move quickly to address the agency's relationship with ICANN, which hosts a constituent and board meeting next week in Mexico City.