GAO Study on IANA Transition Unnecessary, Says NTIA; DOTCOM Act Set for House Commerce Markup Vote

Co-sponsored by Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill., HR-4342 seeks to delay NTIA’s transition of IANA functions for up to one year, until a GAO study is done (CD April 11 p2). The House Communications Subcommittee approved the bill in a markup vote along party lines. Shimkus is “confident” the bill will be “reported favorably by the full committee,” said a spokesman. “There’s no reason this has to be a party line vote,” he said, citing transition concerns raised by President Bill Clinton and ex-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

"We only get one chance to get this transition right,” and it’s “our responsibility to make sure that NTIA doesn’t rubberstamp whatever multistakeholder governance proposal ICANN” provides, said Shimkus in prepared remarks, provided by his office before the markup Wednesday. “I would remind my colleagues that the Internet has run smoothly for 25 years because of our oversight, which to this day has ensured authoritarian governments have no control over the root zone filenames and addresses of the global Internet,” said Shimkus.

The bill “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the U.S. Government’s role in Internet governance,” said House Commerce Committee member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., by email. “The bill would undermine the successful multistakeholder model and the steps NTIA has taken to ensure that the Internet remain an open platform for innovation and free expression,” he said. Doyle is “still open” to working with Republicans on a “GAO study examining the issue,” but “strongly” opposes “provisions in the bill that would tie NTIA’s hands."

The “certainty” that the committee “will report out” the bill “further highlights the politicization of NTIA’s decision and the issue of Internet governance,” said CEO Nao Matsukata of FairWinds Partners, a domain consultancy. “Republican support for this legislation indicates a divergence of views here in the U.S. about the direction of Internet governance, but more importantly about what role the United States should play in the discussion."

Congress is “well within its right to request a GAO study” on the transition, but can do so without legislation, NTIA wrote (http://1.usa.gov/1qeXC8f) to House Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Michigan, Tuesday. Ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., were copied on the letter. The bill “interferes” with NTIA’s ability to transfer IANA functions to a “global multistakeholder community” and “incorrectly suggests that NTIA has a ‘responsibility’ to manage” the Domain Name System (DNS), it said. “There is no one party, including the U.S. government, that controls the Internet,” it said. “NTIA contracted with ICANN [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] as a temporary measure to carry out the government’s policy to allow the private sector to take leadership for management” of the DNS, giving NTIA “no legal or statutory responsibility to manage” the DNS, said the letter. It said the bill is “facially at odds with the longstanding U.S. support for the global multistakeholder governance model” and sends “the wrong signal to the global Internet governance community."

NTIA’s transition of “the Internet’s basic functioning to an undefined entity without any research or clearly defined process is unacceptable,” wrote Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist (http://bit.ly/RrsdiU) to Upton and Shimkus Tuesday. Norquist urged the committee to approve the bill. “The Obama administration has not created or even produced an idea of how this type of handover would happen to prevent ill effects,” he said. “ICANN has the ability to ‘extract defensive registration payments,’ which blackmail businesses and threaten intellectual property,” he said, citing a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1kM1TsH) from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., related to the generic top-level domain expansion. Norquist anticipates the bill’s approval in the committee and “its expedited movement to the House floor,” he said.

Norquist’s letter “demonstrates a lack of understanding of ICANN and what the U.S. government has asked of us,” said Jamie Hedlund, ICANN adviser to CEO Fadi Chehade. “We are not talking about the transfer of these technical functions, but rather the stewardship of these functions.” The transition is the “final step in the U.S. government’s long-established plan to privatize” the DNS, he said. “While we are setting the record straight -- ICANN does not sell domain names or set prices for domain names, and it most certainly does not blackmail or extract payments from companies.”

Upton “could request a GAO study any day of the week,” said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw. “They don’t need an act of legislation.” It “might be a good idea” to do the study, he said. “Tying legislation to a study is just introducing politics and delay.” Without HR-4342, there’s “no guarantee that GAO would have adequate time to review the multistakeholder proposals” before NTIA makes an “irreversible decision to relinquish our oversight role,” said Shimkus’ spokesman.

The public comment period on ICANN’s accountability review began Tuesday, said a release (http://bit.ly/1o5vB0X). The accountability process is “interrelated” with the IANA transition (CD April 25 p19), said ICANN’s Chehade last month. Some Internet governance experts have emphasized the need for ICANN’s accountability review and the transition to be in lockstep (CD May 1 p11). The accountability review is “related to the ongoing discussions” about the transition, but is “a separate process,” said ICANN. The accountability review is “expected to be completed on the same timeframe” as the transition, it said. The review will place special emphasis on strengthening ICANN’s affirmation of commitments, a multistakeholder review process agreed to by NTIA and ICANN in 2009, it said. ICANN released a separate accountability review page (http://bit.ly/1iXBUkZ) highlighting the specifics of the process. Comments are due May 27, replies June 18.