The expiration of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) that gives the US Commerce Dept. accountability over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers (ICANN) – an arrangement that many governments find unfair – is scheduled for this September.
ICANN and others began looking at options for the post-JPA era at least 18 months ago. But at a hearing last week with US Rep. Rick Boucher's House Subcommittee on Communications, technology and the internet, it became clear that many of the same fears and problems that have lingered like dark clouds over ICANN still exist.
Subcommittee members expressed concerns about ICANN's economic standing, as well as the effect that issuing of new top-level domain names would have on the Wild West-like marketplace of the internet.
Some also were concerned about security if the US government relinquishes control, and the possibility that some countries with less progressive civil rights policies could gain more control in global Internet matters.
Ultimately, as Domain Name Wire reports, committee members, some of whom may not even really understand what ICANN does, may want to extend the JPA longer, which is not going to go over well in the international internet community.
For more:- Domain Name Wire has a series of posts on the hearing