Icann

[BigRed]

Anyone know what ICANN is. I see all this stuff about ICANN accredited, but what is that?

[Walter]

ICANN stands for "Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers", their website is at http://www.icann.org/

From their FAQ:
What is ICANN?

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. These services were originally performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other entities. ICANN now performs the IANA function.

[TechZentri]

Can someone put that in layman's term for me?

[GibboNet]

Can someone put that in layman's term for me?They control the use of domain names and their management.

All domains, no matter who you buy them from, are registered through ICAAN. I believe countries have control over their own particular extensions (Like .com.au for Australia), but ICAAN is the backbone of the domain name / IP address system worldwide, based in the US.