Two Congressmen ask Commerce Department for delay to new TLDs
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Representatives ask for a delay or pilot program launch.
Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet, and Howard Berman, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce asking for a delay to the new top level domain rollout.
The pair ask the Department of Commerce to answer five questions before January 5. To summarize:
1. Has the Department confirmed if ICANN is complying with the Affirmation of Commitments?
2. If there is non-compliance, what is the Department doing about it?
3. What is the Department doing to protect businesses and consumers with the rollout?
4. Have the costs to businesses and consumers been quantified?
5. What is the potential for cybersecurity threats from this expansion of new TLDs.
Goodlatte and Berman ask the Department of Commerce to “take steps necessary to delay the rollout of these new gTLDs…” If the Department determines that the expansion of TLDs should proceed, then they ask for a small pilot program.
Further Reading:
playing with fire. The two Congressmen should know about the ITU and the risks of a UN managed internet.
for a moment i read unmanaged internet
@ JS – they just want to make their lobbyists happy. Thinking about the broader picture is asking too much of them.
The more I read this stuff the more I realize that te whole non-Domaining world is in denial of the fact that all the good domains are taken, and like prime real estate you gotta pay for it if you want it. The rest of the world just keeps trying to re-invent the Internet land rush but all it is doing is causing headaches and accomplishing nothing. Looks like pissing in the wind to me.
Reps. Goodlatte and Berman are also big supporters of the SOPA legislation that would legislate domain blocking and service termination.
They are generally of the mind that IP should shape the Internet, not the reverse.
@Philip You may well be right that they may not have the best of motives; and they seem to be on the “wrong” side re. SOPA – but it seems to me that the questions that they have asked are perfectly reasonable.