ICANN GTLD Plan Questioned By US Lawmakers

The board at ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the nonprofit organization created in 1998 to oversee the Internet's domain name system, voted in June 2008 to move toward unlimited gTLDs, in addition to the 21 gTLDs available now, including .com, .biz, and .info. Under the ICANN plan, anyone could apply for a new gTLD -- some suggested have been .food, .basketball and .eco -- at a cost of about US$100,000.

Members of a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Wednesday questioned ICANN Chief Operating Officer Doug Brent about why the organization continues to move forward with its plan to sell new generic top-level domains, or gTLDs. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, complained that ICANN hasn't been able to resolve complaints about its plan to sell new gTLDs to compete with .com, .org and other current TLDs.

Asked by lawmakers how soon ICANN planned to offer new gTLDs, Brent said he wasn't sure. ICANN had originally planned to offer them this year, but the latest estimate is February, and Brent said he expects that deadline to slip as ICANN works with critics to resolve issues.
Critics of the TLD expansion, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, have complained that a huge expansion of gTLDs would force trademark owners to buy multiple domains on each new gTLD, potentially costing them and their customers billions of dollars. This week, the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), an organization with 19 large-business members, called on the U.S. government to conduct a "full-scale" audit of ICANN.

ICANN's Brent defended the organization's decision to move forward with new gTLDs. Internet users, including the U.S. government, have long called for new TLDs, he said. In addition, the expansion of TLDs would allow Internet users who don't use the Roman alphabet to have domain names in their native languages, he noted.

While the results or the next move is not yet known, it would be interesting to see how ICANN - operating much like a corporate instead of NGO resolves this issue!

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