[NA-Discuss] IMPORTANT: US Senate hearings on new gTLDs

[Joly MacFie]

As noted<http://www.mindsandmachines.com/2011/12/u-s-government-strongly-affirms-icann-model-and-new-gtlds/>by
Anthony Van Couvering. Larry Strickling was also talking on Thursday,
across town.

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2011/remarks-assistant-secretary-strickling-practising-law-institutes-29th-annual-te

Here's an excerpt:

 For example, at ICANN, a multistakeholder process that ran for six years
> resulted in the approval last summer of an expansion of top level domains.
> This process involved global stakeholders from the business community,
> civil society, registries, registrars, and governments.  At NTIA, we worked
> throughout the process to make sure that ICANN adequately addressed
> government concerns and we have also spent significant time the last two
> years pushing for overall improvements in ICANN’s accountability and
> transparency to the global Internet community.
>


> Nonetheless, we are now seeing parties that did not like the outcome of
> that multistakeholder process trying to collaterally attack the outcome and
> seek unilateral action by the U.S. government to overturn or delay the
> product of a six-year multistakeholder process that engaged folks from all
> over the world.  The multistakeholder process does not guarantee that
> everyone will be satisfied with the outcome. But it is critical to
> preserving the model of Internet governance that has been so successful to
> date that all parties respect and work through the process and accept the
> outcome once a decision is reached. When parties ask us to overturn the
> outcomes of these processes, no matter how well-intentioned the request,
> they are providing “ammunition” to other countries who attempt to justify
> their unilateral actions to deny their citizens the free flow of
> information on the Internet.  This we will not do.  There is too much at
> stake here.
>


> But we are sensitive to the concerns being raised by some companies about
> the introduction of new gTLDs. Today, Chairman Rockefeller held an
> important oversight hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on the subject
> of how ICANN will expand top level domains. We agree with the Chairman’s
> concerns over how this program will be implemented and its potential
> negative effect if not implemented properly. We will closely monitor the
> execution of the program and are committed to working with stakeholders,
> including U.S. industry, to mitigate any unintended consequences.


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