[ga] Re: [atlarge-discuss] U.S. Will Renew ICANN's Authority

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Danny and all stakeholders or other interested parties and members,

  URL please.  It would seem that the DOC/NTIA have not been
listening very well or have been employing only very selective
comments and statements as to events regarding ICANN's
Contract renewal.

DannyYounger@cs.com wrote:

> By David McGuire
> washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
> Friday, September 13, 2002; 5:41 PM
>
> The U.S. government will renew a California nonprofit's authority to manage
> the Internet's global addressing system, a top Commerce Department official
> said today.
>
> The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the
> Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) under agreements with the U.S. government
> that are up for renewal at the end of this month.
>
> "At this point we do anticipate that there will be an extension" of ICANN's
> authority, Commerce Department Undersecretary Nancy Victory told reporters in
> a conference call. Victory is the head of the Commerce Department's National
> Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees
> ICANN.
>
> ICANN, based in Marina del Rey, has been criticized for failing to involve
> the online public in its decisions, but Victory said she has been encouraged
> by internal ICANN reforms. She added that new agreements with ICANN would
> include provisions "designed to ensure that we continue progress forward with
> the reform effort."
>
> Victory did not say when the renewal of ICANN's authority would be completed,
> nor did she indicate how long it would run.
>
> ICANN President Stuart Lynn said the group is "in discussions with the
> Commerce Department right now about the precise shape" the agreements will
> take.
>
> He added that ICANN would continue pushing to enact internal reforms. "We've
> made good progress, but we haven't completed it. There's still work to be
> done," Lynn said.
>
> Formed in 1998, ICANN was commissioned by the U.S. government to inject
> competition into the domain name industry, which had been monopolized by
> Internet addressing giant Network Solutions Inc. Networks Solutions owned a
> government contract to operate the technical backbone of the DNS, which was
> originally created by government-funded U.S. scientists.
>
> ICANN has accredited more than 100 new address retailers and approved seven
> new globally available Internet domains that compete with dot-com, dot-net
> and dot-org.
>
> Earlier this year, ICANN embarked on an internal reform effort, but critics
> still complain that the reform plans don't give a meaningful voice to
> ordinary Internet users.
>
> Victory said that the ICANN "experiment" needs more time to succeed, adding
> that while she is pleased with ICANN's reform efforts thus far, but she is
> not yet fully satisfied.
>
> University of Miami Law Professor Michael Froomkin said he is not surprised
> that the Commerce Department opted to renew the contract. "They don't want to
> rebuild ICANN from scratch," he said.
>
> Froomkin, editor ICANNWatch.org, a Web site often critical of ICANN, said it
> will be more interesting to see how much pressure the Commerce Department
> exerts on ICANN to reform itself.
>
> Center for Democracy and Technology Policy Analyst Robert Courtney agreed.
> "We've always sort of anticipated that the [memorandum of understanding]
> would be renewed. We continue to hope for and continue to push for some new
> provisions to be included in the MOU," Courtney said. The agreement should
> clearly outline steps ICANN must take to improve its openness and
> transparency, Courtney said.
>
> Froomkin said that Victory's resolve will be key to ICANN's future. "What
> matters is the will of the NTIA, what they put in the agreement is less
> important," he said. "What matters more than anything else is when NTIA is
> willing to draw a line in the sand and really mean it."
>
> Later this month, Victory will be part of the U.S. delegation at a meeting of
> the International Telecommunications Union in Marrakech, Morocco. The United
> States intends to oppose the ITU's efforts to participate more in Internet
> regulation, Victory said.
>
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 972-244-3801
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


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