As noted<http://www.mindsandmachines.com/2011/12/u-s-government-strongly-affirms-icann-model-and-new-gtlds/>by Anthony Van Couvering. Larry Strickling was also talking on Thursday, across town. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2011/remarks-assistant-secretary-str... Here's an excerpt: For example, at ICANN, a multistakeholder process that ran for six years
resulted in the approval last summer of an expansion of top level domains. This process involved global stakeholders from the business community, civil society, registries, registrars, and governments. At NTIA, we worked throughout the process to make sure that ICANN adequately addressed government concerns and we have also spent significant time the last two years pushing for overall improvements in ICANN’s accountability and transparency to the global Internet community.
Nonetheless, we are now seeing parties that did not like the outcome of that multistakeholder process trying to collaterally attack the outcome and seek unilateral action by the U.S. government to overturn or delay the product of a six-year multistakeholder process that engaged folks from all over the world. The multistakeholder process does not guarantee that everyone will be satisfied with the outcome. But it is critical to preserving the model of Internet governance that has been so successful to date that all parties respect and work through the process and accept the outcome once a decision is reached. When parties ask us to overturn the outcomes of these processes, no matter how well-intentioned the request, they are providing “ammunition” to other countries who attempt to justify their unilateral actions to deny their citizens the free flow of information on the Internet. This we will not do. There is too much at stake here.
But we are sensitive to the concerns being raised by some companies about the introduction of new gTLDs. Today, Chairman Rockefeller held an important oversight hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on the subject of how ICANN will expand top level domains. We agree with the Chairman’s concerns over how this program will be implemented and its potential negative effect if not implemented properly. We will closely monitor the execution of the program and are committed to working with stakeholders, including U.S. industry, to mitigate any unintended consequences.
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