[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23347-23348]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 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

[[Page 23348]]

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. Disad-
vantaging 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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