ICANN, a private non-profit making organisation that was created by the US Department of Commerce in 1998, has been told it needs to be more open and impartial over the way it selects new internet names. Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce telecommunications subcommittee commented that, ‘To hear some applicants tell it, events at the Vatican are shrouded in less mystery than the process by which ICANN chooses TLD’s (Top Level Domains).’
Members of a House of Representatives sub-committee expressed their disappointment at ICANN’s decision last November to allow 7 new generic top level domain names (the suffix of an internet address such as .com or .org).
Vincent Cerf, chairman of ICANN, told the committee that it only approved a small number of the original 47 applicants for names to ensure that the internet stays stable. The 7 new names that were approved were .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .pro, .museum, and .name. The names will double the number of generic top level domains on-line.
When the new names were announced there were outcries from firms that had paid a $50,000 application fee in the hope of controlling one or more new domain names had their applications rejected. Others complained that the $50,000 fee was prohibitively expensive. Cerf commented that the steep application fees were to discourage frivolous name applications and to fund ICANN.
Cerf was questioned by Rep. Billy Tauzin over why ICANN awarded .biz to Washington based NeuStar Inc. when the domain name had already been administered under an alternative system by Virginia Beach based Atlantic Root Network Inc. Cerf commented that he had, "a serious problem with the notion of alternative roots," saying that assigning the same internet address to different users would make the internet unworkable.
Rep. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican chairing the subcommittee, was also disappointed that ICANN had not approved .xxx or .kids two seemingly intelligent names aimed to separate underage internet surfers from pornographic content. The committee panellists concluded that ICANN should keep to its original role, as a technical standards body, rather than making quasi-governmental decisions.