Influential internet bodies are calling for big changes in the way that the global network is run.

The overseer of all ".com" domains has joined with national European net bodies to ask the US Government to slim down the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) which manages key parts of the net's addressing system.

The call comes as US politicians are debating whether to renew the agreement to let Icann continue doing its job.

Icann defended itself saying that the call for change was an attempt to stop its tough regulations being imposed on existing monopolies.

Reform or death

Domain giant Verisign has jointly written a statement with Centr, which represents Europe's national domain overseers, calling on the US Government to slim down Icann and turn it into a "lightweight" technical body that has no power to decide regulatory issues.

Together Verisign and the Centr members oversee the running of the majority of net domains.

The call comes at a crucial time for Icann which this year started its own reform process and adopted a blueprint for the new organisation at its June summit held in Bucharest.

But Centr and Verisign, which looks after ".com", ".org" and ".net", want to go further and turn Icann into a body that only oversees the root servers that act as the master address books for the net.

In September, the US Department of Commerce, which Icann answers to, is due to decide whether to renew the Memorandum of Understanding that established the net body and gave it legitimacy.

The Department of Commerce could decide to shut Icann down, reform it or leave it to carry on.

Icann defended itself against the call by Verisign and others saying that all the signatories of the statement were monopoly holders and were unlikely to welcome the scrutiny that it could bring to bear on them.