Control of the internet's root directory, which enables any user anywhere in the world to locate any webpage, will remain with the United States.

The European Union, in particular, has been critical of the Department of Commerce's influence over the internet's core addressing system and has pushed for control to be handed off to an independent body, the Financial Times reports. The U.S. has licensed control of the internet's core addressing system to ICANN, which now will retain that control for at least three more years. The U.S. can review the contract after 18 months.

Concerns over the direction that Icann has taken in governing the internet's core addressing system has raised the possibility of similar national-level addressing systems being created that are outside ICANN's root directory, which would fragment the internet into a series of standalone networks.