The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“INTERNET DOMAIN NAME ADDRESSING SYSTEM” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Senate section on pages S11982-S11983 on Sept. 25, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INTERNET DOMAIN NAME ADDRESSING SYSTEM
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, last week the Department of Commerce signed the sixth amendment to a memorandum of understanding between the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, and the Commerce Department. The first agreement was signed in 1998 to establish an organizational body to manage the technical coordination of the Internet Domain Name Addressing System. In the subsequent years the agreement has been amended to reflect the needs of the organization to accommodate the industry and constituency it was created to support.
The Department of Commerce is hopeful this will be the last agreement they have to sign with ICANN. The hope is for ICANN to show they have become a responsible organization and there can be a transition of the Domain Name System, DNS, management to private sector control, out of the hands of the department permanently.
Several items of interest have been brought to my attention during our oversight hearing on ICANN that I would like the Department of Commerce to consider before ICANN receives the freedom they want as an independent organization. They must first prove they are doing their job. I would encourage the Department of Commerce to establish dates of accomplishment to the milestones they have set out in their most recent memorandum of understanding with ICANN.
Specific, quantifiable goals will help ascertain if ICANN has created a stable environment where innovation and competition can flow freely for the area surrounding the DNS.
It was noted before Congress in the July 31, 2003, hearing that ICANN should be the organization to provide a forum for best practices for the naming and numbering system. The recent amendment to the memorandum of understanding notes the need to continue to develop and test accountability mechanisms. I would ask the department to set a date to determine if these best practices guidelines focusing on stability, security and interoperability have been determined and a set time for their implementation. The initial best practices could be established by a working group by the beginning of 2004 with a follow-up strategic plan for implementation of the first best practice guideline for the industry with in the first 6 months of 2004.
The memorandum of understanding recommends the continued development and implementation of transparent procedures. I would again call for a date certain to ensure the decisionmaking process set by ICANN is transparent, predictable and timely for all parties involved in the decisions ICANN influences. Established procedures for a transparent decisionmaking process should be established by the end of this year to ensure ICANN has this as a top priority and as a signal to ensure the industry and constituents involved in ICANN can begin to plan for a process that will be applied equally across all parties and in a predictable fashion.
One concern that has been noted through our congressional oversight hearing is that parties with contractual obligations to ICANN are disadvantaged in providing services that non-ICANN contracted parties are free to offer. There is reason for this discrepancy to exist in an open market. ICANN should take into consideration the entire global Internet industry when making decisions. Disadvantaging contracted parties should be a thing of ICANN's past and new service level agreements should be negotiated with all ICANN participants that allow the rights of a registry and root zone operator to independently determine functionality, pricing and operations of existing services and sue services as part of their new agreement with the Department of Commerce.
The decisionmaking process needs visible criteria and independent arbitration procedures to ensure no party is being unjustly prosecuted by decisions made at the hands of the ICANN board. Ensuring that ICANN is considered a decisionmaker in global economic commerce hinges on their ability to reach agreements with the other international bodies. They have been required in previous memorandums of understanding to reach agreements with the other country code operators. I would call on the Department of Commerce to put a target date in place for ICANN to reach an agreement with a majority of the other country code operators.
The new leadership of both ICANN and at the National Telecommunications Information Administration should be able to take a fresh look at the challenges that lie before ICANN and its partners and bring a more orderly and professionally accountable way of doing business that encourages competition, innovation and stability for the global internet structure.
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