Check this out...U.S. Asks Group To Scrap $1 Web Address Fee Plan
dailynews.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Commerce Department said Friday that a nonprofit corporation formed to privatize the Internet's
address system should drop its decision to impose a controversial $1-a-year fee on Web site addresses.
The government also called for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open its board meetings to
the public and assure Internet users it will not overstep its authority.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley last month blasted the fee and ICANN's management.
In letters to Commerce Secretary William Daley and the head of ICANN, the Virginia Republican said the fee and other decisions
went beyond the privatization plans the Clinton administration had announced last year and could jeopardize the stability of the Internet.
''The chairman is pleased the Department of Commerce agrees that ICANN should eliminate the $1-per-year domain name fee and immediately open its board
meetings to the public,'' said Bliley spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel.
From 1993 until this year, Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq:NSOL - news) had the sole authority to register Internet addresses in the popular
.com, .net and .org domains that are seen at the end of Internet addresses.
Under the privatization plan, new companies are also allowed to register names in those domains. The first competitor, Register.com, went on line last month and is
due to be joined by a host of others including America Online .
The Commerce Department acknowledged a number of disputes between Network Solutions, ICANN and the U.S. government but urged for a calmer level of debate.
''The Department of Commerce believes that all interests will be served by eliminating the level of inflammatory rhetoric being currently displayed on all sides,''
said Commerce Department General Counsel Andrew Pincus in a letter to Bliley.
Network Solutions has not yet signed an agreement written by ICANN setting rules and minimum requirements for companies that register Internet names. The
agreement, which network Solutions says exceeds ICANN's authority to impose, has been signed by dozens of other firms including Register.com.
Network Solutions has also made changes to the degree of access it provides to its registration files without the consent of the Department of Commerce, Pincus said.
ICANN, in its response to Bliley, said it was surviving on donations from companies and individuals and needed to develop a stable funding source.
''The current situation -- where ICANN incurs considerable costs but has minimal sources for recovery of those costs -- is obviously not viable over the long
term,'' it said.
The Commerce Department said the $1 fee may be lawful but it had become controversial and it would work with ICANN to secure interim resources.
The Clinton administration laid out its final plan to privatize the address system, which assigns names to Web sites and connects the names to corresponding
numerical addresses that are used to steer data around the network, in June 1998.
The plan called for a nonprofit corporation that would begin with an interim, appointed board of directors. The interim board was to create competition for name
registrations, establish qualifications for registering firms, and set up a system for electing a new board of directors that represented the diversity of the Internet.
In November 1998, the administration selected ICANN as the nonprofit to take control of the system that had been overseen for many years by a government
contractor at the University of California and the National Science Foundation. |
