Resource pages


Goodlatte/Berman letter to Commerce over new gTLDs	The following letter was written three days after a House hearing on new gTLDs and within a heavy Washington DC atmosphere regarding intellectual property and the Internet, most notably in the drafting of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Congress of the United States House of Representatives Washington DC 20515 December 16. 2011 The Honorable John Bryson Secretary Department of Commerce 1401 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20230 Dear Mr. Secretary: We write to express serious concerns about the decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to dramatically expand the number of generic Top Level Domain names (gTLDs) without adequate review of the impact of a full implementation.
Governments outline 12 points of gTLD contention with ICANN	At the recent ICANN meeting in Cartagena, the decision was made to hold a subsequent special meeting between the Board and Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) some time in February 2011 in an effort to discuss and reach agreement on a raise of issues that governments have with the planned liberalisation of the top-level domain space. The GAC produced a list of 12 issues that it wishes to discuss at the meeting, contained within its official end-of-meeting communiqué [pdf]. Those issues are listed below:
Greenpeace/ITUC letter to UN Secretary-General re: WCIT	Download the letter Dear Mr Secretary-General, We are writing to you to express our deep concern about a potentially very damaging change to the governance of the Internet. As I am sure you will agree, the Internet represents one of the greatest engines for economic growth, development and transparency of information the world has ever seen. We have all come to rely upon free and unfettered access to its global reach. It has also become an indispensable tool for civil society in general, and international labour and environmental movements in particular.
Greg Walden statement, House hearing on new gTLDs	Statement of the Honorable Greg Walden, Chairman, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Hearing on “ICANN’s Top-Level Domain Name Program” December 14, 2011 Although most Americans have probably never heard of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California not-for-profit manages top-level domains: that part that comes after the “dot” in, for example, dot-com, dot-net, and dot-gov. Today’s hearing focuses on how to balance ICANN’s plans to expand the availability of top-level domains with safeguards to ensure businesses are not forced to spend extraordinary sums to guard against fraud, trademark abuse, or dilution of their brands. For several years, ICANN has considered the expansion of top-level domains. Reasonable people can differ on the process that ICANN has followed leading to this point. But we now stand at the threshold of implementation and the question before us is what’s the best path forward?
Hamadoun Touré speech to Internet conference in Beirut	The following speech was given by ITU Secretary-General, Hamadoun Touré, at the Arab Telecom & Internet Forum 2012 conference in Beirut on 2 February 2012. Read it on the ITU website. Your Excellency, Nicolas Sahnaoui, Minister of Telecommunications, Lebanon; Dr Rima Khalaf, Executive Secretary, ESCWA; Eng. Saud Al Dowaish, CEO, STC Telecom Group; Khalid Bal Kheyour, CEO, ARABSAT; Mr Raouf Abu Zaki, CEO, Iktisaad wal Aamal; Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure to be here with you in Beirut today for the opening of the 11th Arab Telecom and Internet Forum 2012. This event is particularly timely, coming as it does on the first anniversary of last year’s events across the region, in which information and communication technologies – ICTs – played a key role.
House subcommittee hearing on new gTLD program	Committee Chair, Representative Greg Walden: Mr. Pritz, I want to start with you at the Senate commerce hearing last week and the issue you announced that ICANN would reduce the fee for a new gTLD to $47,000 for applicants in a need of financial assistance, so I have a couple of questions here. How can ICANN determine what constitutes an applicant in need of financial assistance? Will lowering the fee ironically make it more affordable for individuals with bad intent to engage in cybersquatting? And does ICANN have the ability to delay? Kurt Pritz: The criteria for awarding financial assistance as all things was developed by the ICANN community. And so seeing this issue across constituency group was formed to consider this issue and develop the criteria by which applications for financial aid would be considered, and they are, one... GW: Can you make that available to us, whatever those criteria are that would meet this?
IANA contract request for proposals	This is the bulk of Request for Proposal (RFP) SA1301-12-RP-IANA put out by the US government's NTIA over management of the IANA functions.
IBSA summary of Internet Governance meeting	IBSA Multi-stakeholder meeting on Global Internet Governance September 1- 2, 2011 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Recommendations
ICANN CEO Economist ad	The following job advert was placed in the Economist on 7 January 2012 looking for a new CEO for ICANN after the Board decided not to renew its current CEO's contract, ending in July 2012. President and Chief Executive Officer ICANN is looking for a public interest-minded leader with a combination of financial management, diplomatic and organizational skills. He/she will report to, serve as a Member of, and work closely with the Board of Directors. ICANN's global public interest mission is to promote the stability and security of the Internet through coordination of its naming and addressing systems. It is a global organization with over 130 staff working in offices in the United States, Belgium and Australia, or living and working across 10 other countries. Most employees work at the principal offices of the organization in Los Angeles, California.
ICANN CEO letter to Washington Post over anti-gTLD editorial	The following letter was sent by ICANN's CEO Rod Beckstrom and published in the Washington Post on Saturday 17 December. It came in response to a highly critical editorial in the newspaper on Monday 12 December which called for the new gTLD program to be delayed and accused ICANN of being accountable to no one. Plenty of .protections for the Web domain expansion When I saw the Dec. 12 editorial “What’s the .rush?” I had to ask, “What .rush?” The program of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open the Internet to new top-level domain names (TLDs) has been anything but rushed. It took more than six years of thoughtful discussion, debate and study involving governments and intellectual property experts from around the globe. About 60 technical papers and independent reports, plus analysis of 2,400 comments, informed seven versions of carefully crafted rules that will govern the award of a new TLD.