The House Science Committee is considering drafting legislation to prevent the registration of top-level Internet domains like .com outside the United States, but will take no action until the Commerce Department puts forth its roadmap for domain names, a panel spokesman said today.
"If the Commerce Department recommends going offshore, then the committee will draft legislation to prevent that," said Quentin Dickerson, spokesman for Representative Chip Pickering (R-Mississippi), chairman of the House Science subcommittee on Basic Research.
This congressional flag-waving is the result of two hearings in the past two weeks in which members of Pickering's panel became the first in Congress to formally address the issue.
A system for administering the millions of Internet addresses, launched by the International Ad Hoc Committee in Geneva last May, adds seven new top-level domains - such as .store and .web - and creates a global body to administer domains. The committee also suggested administering the new system under Swiss law, an idea that appalled Pickering and other panel members.
"American taxpayers, companies, and government built the Internet," Pickering said at the second domain-name hearing, earlier this week. "This is something uniquely American."
Currently, popular top-level domains like .com, .net, and .org are registered by Network Solutions Inc., which has administered domain names for the past five years through a contract with the National Science Foundation that ends next year. Although Network Solutions registers the most popular domain, there are 64 different registrars worldwide, and many countries are selling names under their national domains (such as Canada's .ca) to citizens and foreigners alike.
Don Heath, president of the Internet Society, a central player in the IAHC system, said the House panel is misinterpreting his plans and the entire domain-name registration process.
"It shows a laughable misunderstanding of the Internet," Heath said.
Heath said that the planned global oversight group, called the Council of Registrars, could be based in Geneva, but that this suggestion was by no means final. The IAHC suggested that the council be organized under Swiss corporate law for organizational, not jurisdictional, purposes.
"A likely place [for the council] is Geneva, because it is international, but a likely place is also New York, and a likely place is Herndon, Virginia, right in Network Solutions' offices," Heath said.
But the issue may be moot, for several reasons.
First is the much-anticipated recommendations by the intra-agency task force on domain names, headed by the Commerce Department. Larry Irving, assistant secretary for communications and information, told the subcommittee last week that the group would release its recommendations by 1 November, and that they would not be entirely consistent with the IAHC plan.
Second is that the Science Committee, and Pickering, may lose jurisdiction over the domain issue. The House Commerce Committee could try to take control of the issue on the grounds that domain names are part of the commercial realm, a committee staffer said.
In the meantime, Heath said he had requested meetings with Pickering and his panel with the intent to "allay concerns" about the IAHC proposal. The subcommittee is expected to hold at least one more hearing on the issue once the Commerce Department plan is made public.
"[Members of Congress] take action because the Internet is in the public eye now, and they make decisions based on stupid assumptions," Heath said. "Pickering is a respected United States congressman - you would think that he would know better."
