home Domains, Africa Republicans threaten to derail internet transition: A case for .Africa

Republicans threaten to derail internet transition: A case for .Africa

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ICANN is currently being sued in Los Angeles court for running a sham process in order to award the .africa domain to its preferred bidder and was recently served with an injunction to prevent it from handing over control of that extension despite the legal case. –Kieren McCarthy on theRegister

Washington Capitol Building. Credits.
Washington Capitol Building.
Credits.

The efforts by the Republican congressmen are increasing their to delay transition of a critical piece of internet infrastructure from the US government to a non-profit organization based in California.
 
For the third time, a House Appropriations subcommittee has included a provision in a must-pass bill that would prevent the Department of Commerce from using any funds in the transition of the IANA contract from the department to non-profit California organization ICANN.
 

Tomorrow Tuesday, May 24, 2016, at 10:00 a.m, ET, there will be a full committee hearing titled “Examining the Multistakeholder Plan for Transitioning the Internet Assigned Number Authority”. The hearing will examine the proposed transition of oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a department of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that allocates Internet IP addresses and domain names, to the global multistakeholder community.

 
The approach by the senate members  approach comes in addition to a series of letters from a number of senators, including Ted Cruz, asking pointed questions of the organization and its links to the Chinese government. Recently  a letter being circulated on The Hill by Senator Marco Rubio asking for the transition to be delayed until organizational changes at ICANN are in place and tested, this But could be really concerning those in favor of the transition.
 

Operational concerns, A case on .africa new gTLD IRP

On top of concerns over accountability and a lack of financial controls, the organization’s operational record is also a cause of concern.   ICANN is currently being sued in Los Angeles court for running a sham process in order to award the .africa domain to its preferred bidder and was recently served with an injunction to prevent it from handing over control of that extension despite the legal case.
 
Previous to the legal case, ICANN lost an independent review of its decision to dismiss the other applicant when it was found to have broken its own bylaws. Not only that, but it was later revealed that ICANN’s staff had wrongly interfered in the process and then sought to cover up their involvement, even redacting the official independent report highlighting staff actions. The same legal team then misrepresented how and why those redactions had been made.

In short, while some of the reasons that Republicans are attempting to delay the IANA transition are misguided, the concern over whether the reforms to ICANN will prove sufficient are all too real.
 
Read the full review by Kieren McCarthy on theRegister
 

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James Barnley

I’m the editor of the DomainingAfrica. I write about internet and social media, focusing mainly on Domains. As a subscriber to my newsletter, you’ll get a lot of information on Domain Issues, ICANN, new gtld’s, Mobile technology and social media.

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