FTC chairman response on new gTLDs at Judiciary Committee hearing

The following transcript comes from a hearing of the US House Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet Subcommittee.

The hearing, held Wed 7 Dec 2011, concerned: 'Oversight of the Antitrust Enforcement Agencies' and had FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz and Assistant Attorney General of DoJ Antitrust Division, Sharis Pozen.

Unexpectedly, the first question asked by chair Bob Goodlatte (filing in for Lamar Smith) was with regard to ICANN's new gTLD program. It was also picked up by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren later on in the two-hour session. Both excerpts are included below.

Goodlatte: Chairman Leibowitz, I'm going to start with a question that does not relate to your anti-trust jurisdiction but is an issue of concern to this Committee - in fact we've held a hearing on it - and that is related to ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - which is about to open an application windows that could led to the creation of an unlimited number of new generic top level domains.