Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Gallagher announced Thursday that the U.S. will not transfer control of the internet to any other entity and will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file," CNET reports. The "root" is the master file of authorized top-level internet domains. The announcement came as a surprise and may cause waives internationally. In the past, the U.S. has said it would grant the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) responsibility for maintaining the root file.

The current memorandum of understanding between ICANN and the Department of Commerce will expire next year, in September.

The Bush administration's announcement came a few days before ICANN's meeting in Luxembourg and asserted that he U.S. will continue its "oversight" over ICANN and ensure that its main task remains technical coordination. The U.S. position won't likely go over well with the United Nations, through which many poorer states have been requesting more input into how the internet is managed.