USA fears unfriendly nation might take control of ICANN after agreement expires

America needs to keep its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), thinks Christine Jones, general counsel and corporate secretary for The Go Daddy Group, a huge registrar based in Scottsdale, Arizona. A number of lawmakers also called upon the US authorities to maintain oversight of the corporation after the agreement between the government and ICANN expires in September this year.

Mechanisms ICANN has put in place to appeal its decisions "are all ICANN reviewing ICANN," Jones said Thursday, during a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet.

ICANN has been expressing its wish for more independence for some time so far. It wants to end joint project agreement (JPA) with the U.S. Department of Commerce when it expires Sept. 30. Meantime, other countries called for more international control of ICANN, and in May, Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for Internet-related issues, called for the creation of a group of 12 countries to oversee the organization.

Nevertheless, in spite of these long time calling for international oversight several members of the subcommittee pushed for the agreement between ICANN and the Department of Commerce to be extended. 

Ken Silva, CTO for VeriSign, said that the end of the agreement could raise concerns about the security and stability of the DNS.

Lawmakers in turn are very concerned over the possible control of ICANN by the nation with unfriendly attitude towards the United States.

Representative Lee Terry, a Nebraska Republican said: "Should a rogue nation get the chance to control the DNS, it's a definite possibility they could use it to harm the U.S. or to dismantle or interfere with our ability to communicate globally through the Internet." He adds: "Quite simply put, the United States government created the Internet and needs to be in charge."

In addition concerns were raised about ICANN’s plan to introduce dozens of new generic top-level domains, or gTLDs. Currently, 21 gTLDs exist, but new ones like .phone or .banks could be purchased under the ICANN plan.

According to Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, a large number of new gTLDs could cause consumer confusion over Web site ownership. He said: "I have suspicions that expanded the number of top-level domains could in fact give rise to increased instances of fraud perpetrated upon consumers and the practice of cybersquatting.”

Dingell also called on the Department of Commerce to renew its JPA with ICANN. "ICANN remains far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance," he said. "Particularly in a time of increased cyber attacks on the U.S. government and domestic business, I find it wholly unwise to reduce further the participation of the federal government in determining the course of the Internet's future development."