Hi all

A few stories relating to domain name issues I came across.

Cheers
David

ICANN UNDER FIRE AT CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS
The Congressional hearings into ICANN's selection of new
generic TLDs yielded fierce debate over ICANN's role -- is
it a technical body and/or a policy making body?  Since much
of its action suggest policy, at least one congressman
suggested that Congress should play a more active oversight
role.  The hearings also yielded some interesting
information regarding the $50,000 application fees for new
gTLDs. ICANN director Vint Cerf indicated that the money is
being used for evaluation and negotiation, suggesting that
the losing applications are effectively funding the
negotiations with the winning bids.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/528384.asp
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB98166703692963456.htm
http://www.thestandard.net/article/display/0,1151,22068,00.html

Prepared Statement of A. Michael Froomkin
Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law
before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy & Commerce
Subcommittee on Telecommunications

"Is ICANN's New Generation of Internet Domain Name Selection Process 
Thwarting
Competition?"

February 8, 2001

http://www.law.tm/ for the Home Page or by direct linking to the URL:

http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/commerce8Jan2001.htm


Selection of Net Suffixes Defended
The head of the board that oversees the Internet's addressing system
appeared before a Congressional panel today and defended the process the
board used to select new suffixes to compete with the popular .com. But
he said that the system could be better.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/technology/09ICAN.html (subscription
required)


 U.S. Lawyers Criticize ICANN 
U.S. lawmakers said Thursday that the Internet's top naming authority
needs to revamp the way it hands out new addresses but said they saw no
need to directly interfere with the process. 
 http://www.wirednews.com/news/politics/0,1283,41699,00.html

-- 
David Goldstein
Project Manager, Internet Industry Liaison Project
Communications Law Centre

dgoldstein§comslaw.org.au
PO Box 14428 MCMC, Melbourne Vic 8001
tel: 03 9248 1255
fax: 03 9248 1277
http://www.comslaw.org.au