Congress to question new TLDs rollout

Kevin Murphy, April 26, 2011, Domain Policy

The US Congress is to investigate ICANN’s new top-level domains program next week.

The House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet will hold an “ICANN Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Oversight Hearing” on Wednesday May 4 at 10am local time.

The hearing has been called at the direction of the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte.

The list of witnesses has yet to be published, but I’d be surprised if we don’t see a representative of the intellectual property lobby in attendance.

It will also be interesting to see who from ICANN is put forward to defend the new gTLD program.

ICANN is accustomed to being hauled over the coals on Capitol Hill every year or so, but I believe that this is the first time it has been subject to a US “oversight” hearing since it signed the Affirmation of Commitments in September 2009.

The AoC ostensibly separated ICANN from direct US control, in favor of a multi-stakeholder approach that gave voice to all national governments.