The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications has scheduled a hearing for Thursday, February 8 at 10:00 am in 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.
http://com-notes.house.gov/schedule.htm
The hearing, entitled \"Is ICANN\'s New Generation of Internet Domain Name Selection Process Thwarting Competition?\" will focus on ICANN\'s recently announced selections of registry operators for new top level domains.
Of 44 applicants who each paid ICANN a $50,000.00 non-refundable fee, only 7 companies were selected most of them already dominant in the industry including Network Solutions, Register.com, NeuStar. Many of the 37 companies and orgainizations turned down by ICANN and outside observers including public interest groups such as ACLU, CPSR, EPIC and ACM felt that the the process was arbitrary and biased toward insiders and major players.
In the groups\' letter to Secretary Norman Mineta of the United States Department of Commerce concern was expressed over the lack of process and public oversight in the publication of Top Level Domains (TLDs) on the Internet.
The letter also stated that artificial limitations placed on the number of generic top-level domain names, such as \".com,\" and \".org,\" present a serious threat to freedom of expression.
http://reclaimthe.net/rights/
\"Top-level domain names make content visible on the Net and are the road signs for navigating cyberspace, By severely limiting the domain space, ICANN and the Commerce Department have failed to recognize the needs and free speech rights of individual Internet users and non-commercial organizations\".
Of the applicants turned down Name.Space was the most ambitous, submitting 118 out of the more than 500 TLDs that it publishes including \"art.\" \"music.\" \"shop.\" and \"sucks.\" Founder and CEO Paul Garrin stressed the importance of balancing the needs of culture community and commerce in contrast to ICANN\'s preference for big business and hegemony of intellectual property and trademark rights over free speech. When asked by then Chairman Esther Dyson \"which\" TLDs are for free speech Garrin replied \"all of them\" and explained that Name.Space is based on an economy of scale which provides affordable access for all domains by operating numerous TLDs on the same redundant infrastructure, sharing the costs. This keeps prices low while supporting TLDs that may have cultural but not necessarily commercial value, thereby enabling access and expression for non commercial and community groups in unique and expressive ways. Name.Space has been operating its TLD registry since 1996.
In an earlier letter to the Dept. of Commerce, Congressional Reps. Ed Markey and Lois Capps expressed concern over a lack of time for adequate public comments on ICANN\'S selection and that the newly elected at large members did not have a say in the new TLD process.
http://reclaimthe.net/icann/freeze/
The final decision on adding new TLDs to the root rests with the US Department of Commerce in accordance to Amendment 11 of the Cooperative Agreement between the NTIA and Network Solutions. The House Energy and Commerce Committee review will likely effect whether ICANN\'s selections will be accepted by the NTIA and if those rejected will be reconsidered or added to the selections.
Send letters and comments before the hearings (by Tuesday February 6) by sending email to Jessica Wallace at Congressman Billy Tauzin\'s office:
jessica.wallace@mail.house.gov.
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