Senate hearing on .xxxx - is this news?
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has called a hearing for Dec. 8 to discuss ICANN's plans to open up the application process for new generic top-level domains in mid January.
"This hearing will examine the merits and implications of this new program and ICANN's continuing efforts to address concerns raised by the Internet community," read a post on the committee's website.
ICANN's plan, which will allow parties to apply to become the registrar of top-level domains of their own creation, has come under fire recently from the Association of National Advertisers, among other trade groups and brands. The ANA claims that the creation of hundreds of new generic TLDs will burden businesses of all sizes, forcing them to defensively purchase countless domains with all types of iterations of their brand names. The organization also asserts that the program would spur an increase in cyber squatting and other online malfeasance.
"We believe the steps taken by ICANN so far don't adequately meet the concerns raised about this issue," said Dan Jaffe, ANA's exec VP-government relations. "This is clearly an issue Congress thinks is important enough to discuss further."
"This hearing will examine the merits and implications of this new program and ICANN's continuing efforts to address concerns raised by the Internet community," read a post on the committee's website.
ICANN's plan, which will allow parties to apply to become the registrar of top-level domains of their own creation, has come under fire recently from the Association of National Advertisers, among other trade groups and brands. The ANA claims that the creation of hundreds of new generic TLDs will burden businesses of all sizes, forcing them to defensively purchase countless domains with all types of iterations of their brand names. The organization also asserts that the program would spur an increase in cyber squatting and other online malfeasance.
"We believe the steps taken by ICANN so far don't adequately meet the concerns raised about this issue," said Dan Jaffe, ANA's exec VP-government relations. "This is clearly an issue Congress thinks is important enough to discuss further."
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