For Don Heath, the issue of who will administer domain names once the US government opens the system to competition next year just got more complex. As president of the Internet Society, Heath helped design the International Ad Hoc Committee's plan to take the DNS global. But now – with the White House, industry leaders, and everyone else with an opinion already squabbling over who should control .com, .net, and other lucrative domains – Congress is threatening to legislate. And congressional reactions to the IAHC plan "show a laughable misunderstanding of the Internet," says Heath.
At issue is the IAHC proposal to move the registration process to Geneva. "That is not going to sell very well – not here, not on Main Street," declared Representative Chip Pickering (R-Mississippi), vice chair of the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research, this fall.
"Congress is taking action because the Internet is in the public eye," says Heath, "and they're making decisions based on stupid assumptions." To change those assumptions, Heath has been meeting privately with members of Congress.
This article originally appeared in the December issue of Wired magazine.
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