Commerce Secretary

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.