Domain Name Industry's Lobbying Priorities May Shift Post-IANA Transition

The domain name industry has never had a major direct lobbying presence in Congress, with only ICANN and top registrars like Verizon and Neustar maintaining a presence there, said Rightside Vice President-Business and Legal Affairs Statton Hammock. Most sector stakeholders interact with Capitol Hill and federal agencies via letters and sporadic meetings rather than actively “walking the halls,” Hammock said: “There aren’t a whole lot of issues” the industry at large cares about that “Congress could act on.”

ICANN continued to have the largest lobbying presence in Q3 among domain name industry players, reporting $200,000 in lobbying expenses. Three outside firms reported a combined $190,000 revenue for lobbying on its behalf -- Akin Gump, Kountoupes|Denham and Mehlman Castagnetti. The nonprofit and its outside lobbyists have reported the same lobbying costs consistently since Q2 2015. ICANN said its own lobbying priorities included the IANA transition, internet governance and education on the entity's mission. Outside lobbyists reported the same priorities.

ICANN has “no plans to reduce our presence” on the Hill or elsewhere in the federal government post-transition, said Vice President-Strategic Programs Jamie Hedlund. The nonprofit is re-evaluating whether it will continue to retain its contracts will all three of its current outside lobbying firms, he said. ICANN has contracted with either one or two lobbying firms since 2003 but retained Akin Gump in 2015 for appropriations issues on the transition, Hedlund said. ICANN’s decision whether to retain the same number of outside lobbyists “will not have an impact on our engagement” with the Hill and federal agencies, he said.

The U.S. government remains an “enormous stakeholder” in ICANN even though it no longer has a formal oversight role over the organization’s activities “and we intend to continue our outreach” to Capitol Hill, NTIA and other agencies, Hedlund said. The government will have a role in ICANN governance as an equal member of the Governmental Advisory Committee, but the concentration of so many registrars in the country means the U.S. will still have an “outsized” role in engaging with stakeholders, Hedlund said. ICANN likely will concentrate on internet governance and particularly the multistakeholder model, since most other issues that the wider domain name industry has an interest in are “for the most part beyond our mandate,” he said.

Registries' Participation

Five outside lobbying firms reported $170,000-$175,000 in Q3 lobbying on behalf of Neustar. Hogan Lovells reported it remained a registered lobbyist for the registrar but engaged in no activity on the company’s behalf. Morgan, Lewis was the only firm of the five that reported any lobbying for Neustar on ICANN-related issues. The other four exclusively lobbied on telecom issues, including on Neustar’s role as local number portability administrator. Neustar urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn the FCC’s approval of Iconectiv (Telcordia) to become the next LNPA (see 1609130031).

Verisign reported $80,000 in lobbying expenses for the quarter via K&L Gates. Verisign’s lobbying expenditures have gone down significantly since Q4, when it reported $280,000 in spending, of which $240,000 went to K&L Gates. The law and lobbying firm said it lobbied on the IANA transition and domain name system cybersecurity. Grayling reported $20,000 revenue for Q3 lobbying on behalf of Donuts, including on the transition and internet governance policy.

It’s likely stakeholders will continue to view lobbying Congress and NTIA as a forum for airing their grievances about ICANN-related issues post-transition, Hedlund said. But ICANN hopes most or all of those concerns “would be aired exclusively” via internal ICANN community processes now that ICANN has incorporated language from the now-expired NTIA-ICANN Affirmation of Commitments into the organization’s bylaws, he said. Domain name sector stakeholders have historically gone to the Hill and NTIA “to talk about issues that felt couldn’t be resolved in a way they would like within the ICANN community,” Hedlund said. As ICANN rolled out the new generic top-level domains (gTLD) program, some aggrieved stakeholders attempted to raise concerns on the Hill, but “the real work was done within the ICANN community,” he said.

The domain name industry’s interest in the federal government was never solely focused on the transition, so the disappearance of that issue likely means stakeholders will “just shift to issues unrelated to ICANN until there’s an ICANN issue they want to bring to Congress’ attention,” said Phil Corwin, principal of e-commerce and IP law consultancy Virtualaw. “It’ll be a different environment” post-transition since the government “no longer has its special relationship with ICANN,” he said. “You’ll start seeing them focus on issues they want to be proactive on, and as tech issues arise in the next Congress, I think they’ll react when it’s in their business interest to do so.”

Domain Name Association members will likely continue to have an interest in working with the federal government on industry issues but the overall level of interest in lobbying is likely to go down now that the IANA transition has occurred, said Donuts Executive Vice President Jon Nevett, a member of DNA’s board. Nevett pointed to the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s ongoing work on a second set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms as an issue that some on the Hill likely will continue take an interest in, particularly given the working group’s partial focus on whether to permanently base ICANN's headquarters in Los Angeles. Lawmakers and/or aides also may take a continued interest in the gTLD program as ICANN re-examines that process, Nevett said. Donuts itself will continue to “work with folks on the Hill and [the White House] who are interested in these issues,” he said.

Hammock said he anticipates continued domain name industry interest in intellectual property issues given that MPAA, RIAA and others in the entertainment industry have been urging ICANN stakeholders to “take greater action to combat piracy and infringement.” Hammock said he has met with staff for members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees to “give them our industry’s perspective of what we’re capable of doing and not capable of doing to police” infringement. “We’ve been underscoring that we’re good actors [on IP], but we can’t act beyond the limits of our authority or resources,” he said. The FBI and other agencies also weighed in on verifying the contact information for domain name registrants, though the industry largely believes suggested measures are “not practical,” Hammock said. Nevett also noted likely continued interest in content-related IP issues.

Individual domain name registries may have specific issues they’ll want to lobby on, such as Verisign’s cooperative agreement with NTIA allowing the company’s administration of the root zone file, said Shane Tews, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy. An amendment to the cooperative agreement that took effect Thursday removed Verisign’s root zone maintainer obligations to NTIA, allowing Verisign to administer the root zone file under the root zone maintainer services agreement (RZMA) with ICANN, said ICANN Global Domains Division President Akram Atallah in a blog post. The RZMA simultaneously was extended Thursday through 2024, ICANN said. A related extension of Verisign’s .com registry agreement through 2024 also extended the company’s current $7.85 price cap on .com addresses through 2024, though NTIA still reserves the right to re-evaluate the price cap when the cooperative agreement comes up for renewal in November 2018. The .com price cap is “the issue that sticks out the most right now,” Tews told us.