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Pritz to defend ICANN in Congress

Kevin Murphy, April 27, 2011, 12:55:47 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN has confirmed that Kurt Pritz, its point man for the new top-level domains program, will represent the organization at a Congressional hearing next week.
As I reported yesterday, The House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet will hold an “ICANN Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Oversight Hearing” on May 4.
Pritz is senior vice president of stakeholder relations. He has led the development of the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook for the last few years.
Some, such as GNSO Council chair Stephane Van Gelder, have already expressed surprise that ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom will not be attending.
The last time Congress dragged ICANN to Capitol Hill, in 2009, it was former CEO Paul Twomey who took the brunt of the questioning.
As Domain Name Wire recounts, ICANN took a good kicking on that particular occasion.
The focus of next week’s hearing is expected to be the intellectual property implications of new TLDs.

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Comments (5)

  1. M says:

    Would be interesting to see if this leads to additional delays making the June 20 date irrelevant, i think ICANN will do all that is necessary and still stand behind the June 20 commitment it made in San Francisco.
    Do they usually broadcast these live or only later archive the sessions?

  2. I think Kurt is a good choice. He knows the program very well and has spent years catching spears and arrows from all sides. He is respectful, answers the questions that are asked, and doesn’t get upset.

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