Department of Commerce

FTC and Congressmen argue for new gTLD scale-back

by Kieren McCarthy | 17 Dec 2011 |

Political pressure to delay or limit the program for potentially thousands of new Internet extensions has further increased with not one but two highly critical letters from the US establishment.

Writing to the organization responsible for the program, ICANN, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has produced a searing indictment of the organization's failure to tackle authentication issues with the domain name system over the course of a decade. It "urges" ICANN to introduce a "pilot program" rather than proceed with a full rollout in January.

A second letter sent to Commerce Secretary John Bryson from two House representatives - Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Congressman Howard Berman - also asks for a limited pilot program, this time arguing that it is needed to prevent widespread trademark infringement.

The two letters come following a tumultuous week for ICANN in Washington.

FTC letter to ICANN over new gTLDs

The following letter was sent one week after FTC chair Jon Leibowitz was unexpectedly asked in a hearing of the US Senate's House Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet Subcommittee about his view of the new gTLD program produced by ICANN.

Leibowitz made headlines when he responded that he was "very, very concerned" about the program and that it could prove to be a "disaster for businesses and consumers".

The comments were seized upon by opponents of the gTLD program and raised in two subsequent hearings in the following week by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (see transcript) and Subcommittee on Communications and Technology (see transcript).

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.

Internet community responses to IANA statement of work

by Kristin Weinberger | 15 Aug 2011 |

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions are critical to the Internet Domain Name System (DNS).

US government letter to ICANN re: vertical integration

United States Department of Commerce

Jun 16 2011

Dear Chairman Dengate-Thrush:

Testimony of Jon Postel, Congressional Hearing, 7 Oct 98

Testimony of Jon Postel

Director, Computer Networks Division, Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California

BEFORE

Syndicate content