NEW YORK – A New Zealand lawyer long active on Internet addressing policies was elected Friday to replace Internet pioneer Vint Cerf as chairman of a key oversight agency.
The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers selected Peter Dengate Thrush, 52, over telecommunications expert Roberto Gaetano to head the nine-year-old agency tasked with handling domain names and other issues related to allowing Internet computers to find Web sites and route e-mail.

AdvertisementGaetano, 57, remains ICANN's vice chairman.
The selections were unanimous.

Although neither Dengate Thrush nor Gaetano has Cerf's name recognition or long-standing ties to the Internet, both are well-regarded within the ICANN community.

Cerf, 64, who in the 1970s co-invented the communications protocols that serve as the Internet's foundation, stepped down from ICANN on Friday because of term limits. He was ICANN's second and longest-serving chairman, having been first elected to the position in 2000.

“To those who now guide its path into the future comes the challenge to fashion an enduring institution on this solid foundation,” Cerf said before stepping down. “I am confident that this goal is not only attainable, it is now also necessary. The opportunity is there: Make it so.”

Friday's election of an New Zealander to head ICANN and an Italian as vice chairman, conducted at the conclusion of weeklong meetings in Los Angeles, could help blunt any criticisms that the organization is American-centric, given its headquarters in Marina del Rey, Calif., and the veto power the U.S. Commerce Department yields over it.

“It will make it harder for those complaining to say it's totally U.S.-dominated, which it isn't but it certainly looked that way,” former ICANN Chairwoman Esther Dyson said.