[Note: March 13, 2020— Apparently the transfer has happened, according to the Wikipedia page about IANA, however it only mentions it very briefly in the last sentence, saying: “On October the contract between the United States Department of Commerce and ICANN to perform the IANA functions was allowed to expire and the stewardship of IANA functions was officially transitioned to the private-sector.”]
The following is a summary of this Washington Examiner article:
Officials have confirmed that the U.S. Department of Commerce is about to hand off the last remaining American control over the Internet to unelected and unaccountable UN related international bodies on October 1, when the transition will be finalized barring what the Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling called “any significant impediment.”
The “Internet Assigned Numbers Authority,” which is the agency responsible for converting numerical web locations into human-readable domain names such as “openmindedrealism.com,” will be moved from U.S. control to an international body which includes influence by China and Russia.
Critics of the move have pointed out that the agency would be able to be used by totalitarian governments such as China to shut down the Web anywhere around the globe, and it would create a gateway for censorship and content regulation. [Also since the Establishment controlled UN would have jurisdiction, it would open up the potential for internet censorship due to political reasons at the request of the organization.]
If the facilities were to be moved to China, they would go into the same building as the Cyberspace Administration agency which is responsible for censoring that country’s internet.
Opponents have found a loophole to the transfer taking place, due to the fact that the federal government is constitutionally prohibited from transferring federal property without approval from Congress.
A coalition of 25 advocacy groups including Americans for Tax Reform, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Heritage Action have sent a letter to Congress making those points last week. Also, Americans for Limited Government issued a separate statement calling for Congress to sue in the event that the transfer occurs.