U.S. Asks ICANN Some Hard Questions

The Department of Commerce is asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers some tough questions about its plans for Net addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has some interesting plans for net addresses that would shake up the current system. But in two separate letters, the Department of Commerce (DOC) has raised some serious concerns about them, according to the BBC.

The first involves ICANN’s plans to offer up to 800 new addresses for $185,000 per domain, with a yearly cost of $60,000. Commerce Department official Meredith Baker told Icaan it needed to "articulate a clear rationale for the proposed fee structure" and prove the change would "not compromise the stability or security of DNS (Domain Name System)."

The other problem revolves around Icann’s idea of expanding the number of Generic Top Level Domains (gLTDs). There are currently 21 of them, including .com and .org, but in June Icann suggested an unlimited number of gLTDs. That’s prompted criticism from another Commerce Department official, Deborah Garza, who wrote:

"The DOC is unconvinced that new gTLDs will alter the preference for .com domains, and fears that a huge number of new gTLDs will simply force companies to register them in order to maintain and redirect appropriate traffic".