The Icann will not block Russian websites at the certificate level. The organization says it was created to keep the internet going, not to stop it. The Icann also says she doesn’t have the technical ability to shut down the internet.
The internet organization writes that in a letter to the Ukrainian Minister of Digital Affairs Mykhailo Fedorov. Earlier this week, he asked Icann whether the organization could help shut down the internet in Russia. Icann could do that by revoking the Russian tld .ru, as well as the SSL certificates associated with those domains. Fedorov also asked if Icann could shut down the root servers located in Russia.
The Icann says it’s just a “technical coordinator” overseeing various internet technologies. “In that role, we ensure that the operation of the Internet is not made political, and we have no authority to impose sanctions,” the organization writes. “The Icann was created to make the Internet work, not to deploy our coordinating role so that it stops working.”
In addition, the Icann also says that it is not technically possible to block TLDs or revoke SSL certificates. For country-specific domain names, the Icann can only execute requests from the countries themselves, the organization says. “The international agreements do not give Icann the opportunity to unilaterally close these domains.” If the Icann broke those agreements, it would have “a devastating and permanent effect on the trust” of the internet. The Icann also says that SSL certificates cannot be revoked for specific domains, because they are issued by third parties and Icann is not responsible for them. The root servers are also maintained by independent administrators, Icann says, so she can’t and won’t do anything about that either.