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ICANN’S TOP–LEVEL DOMAIN NAME PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 14, 2011 

Serial No. 112–107 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

Chairman 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

Vice Chairman 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

Ranking Member 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 6 

Hon. Lee Terry, a Representative in Congress from the State of Nebraska, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 8 

Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 8 

Hon. Doris O. Matsui, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 9 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 10 

WITNESSES

Fiona M. Alexander, Associate Administrator, Office of International Affairs, 

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department 

of Commerce ......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 176 

Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President, Stakeholder Relations, International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ...................................... 22 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 185 

Daniel L. Jaffe, Executive Vice President, Government Relations, Association 

of National Advertisers, on behalf of Coalition for Responsible Internet 

Domain Oversight ................................................................................................ 62 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 64 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 212 

Thomas Embrescia, Chief Executive Officer, Employ Media ............................... 107 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 109 

Anjali K. Hansen, Intellectual Property Attorney, Council of Better Business 

Bureaus ................................................................................................................. 119 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 121 

Joshua S. Bourne, President, The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse ....... 128 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 131 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 222 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Statement, dated December 13, 2011, of ASAE, The Center for Association 

Leadership ............................................................................................................ 142 

Statement, dated December 14, 2011, of Name.Space, Inc. ................................. 144 

Letter, dated December 13, 2011, from Rebecca M.J. Gould, Vice President, 

Global Government Relations and Public Policy, Dell, Inc., to Mr. Walden 

and Ms. Eshoo ...................................................................................................... 155 

Statement, dated December 14, 2011, of the National Restaurant Association . 167 

Statement, dated December 3, 2011, of Rod Beckstrom, Chief Executive Officer and President, International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), et al. ............................................................................................. 171 

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ICANN’S TOP–LEVEL DOMAIN NAME 

PROGRAM 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:04 a.m., in room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg Walden (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Walden, Terry, Stearns, 

Shimkus, Bono Mack, Blackburn, Bilbray, Bass, Gingrey, Scalise, 

Latta, Guthrie, Kinzinger, Barton, Upton (ex officio), Eshoo, Markey, Matsui, Barrow, Christensen, and Waxman (ex officio). 

Staff present: Ray Baum, Senior Policy Advisor/Director of Coalitions; Allison Busbee, Legislative Clerk; Neil Fried, Chief Counsel, 

C&T; Debbee Keller, Press Secretary; Gib Mullan, Chief Counsel, 

CMT; David Redl, Counsel, C&T; Roger Sherman, Democratic 

Chief Counsel, Communications and Technology; Shawn Chang, 

Democratic Counsel; Kara Van Stralen, Democratic Special Assistant; Jeff Cohen, Democratic Counsel, FCC Detailee; and Phil 

Barnett, Democratic Staff Director. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON 

Mr. WALDEN. Call to order the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology for the purpose of a hearing on ICANN’s toplevel domain name program. I welcome our witnesses here today, 

and we look forward to your testimony. 

Although most Americans probably have never heard of the 

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, sorry, 

ICANN, the California not-for-profit manages the top-level domains, that part that comes after the dot in, for example, a .com, 

.net and .gov. Today’s hearing focuses on how to balance ICANN’s 

plans to expand the level of top-level domains with safeguards to 

ensure businesses are not forced to expend extraordinary sums to 

guard against fraud, trademark abuse, or dilution of their brands. 

For several years ICANN has considered the expansion of toplevel domains. Reasonable people can differ on the process that 

ICANN has followed leading to this point, but we now stand at the 

threshold of implementation, and the question before us today is 

what is the best path forward? 

To illustrate concerns of critics, consider the number of domains 

a company may be faced with registering. Apple, for example, has 

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Apple.com, iPhone.com, iCloud.com, and iChat.com. iPad.com, however, displays nothing more than a splash page that says it is a site 

that is soon coming, likely meaning someone bought the domain 

name in anticipation of selling it to Apple. The House of Representatives Information Security Group has flagged Facetime.com as a 

malicious site that may attempt to install rogue scripts on your 

computer if you visit it. These are just a few examples of the issues 

that arise every day on the Internet between cybersquatters, criminals, and legitimate businesses. 

Now, bear in mind that all these examples are in the .com toplevel domain. To protect against mischief, Apple also owns domain 

names in other top-level domains like Apple.info, to say nothing of 

the more than 200 country code top-level domains and the international domain names that use non-Latin alphabets. Under the 

expansion that ICANN will begin this January, trademark holders 

are concerned that not only will each new top-level domain present 

a new chance for bad actors to purchase second-level domains for 

nefarious or illegitimate purposes, but that the top-level domains 

themselves could become fertile ground for cybersquatters. This is 

particularly concerning to trademark holders because each application for a top-level domain carries a $185,000 price tag. 

To try to protect business interests in this new world of nearly 

unlimited top-level domains, ICANN has instituted a 7-month objection period for each new top-level domain application. One of the 

objections available to companies is that a new top-level domain infringes on another’s legal rights. To address second-level domain 

issues, ICANN has required a trademark clearinghouse and sunrise periods during which trademark holders can preregister for domain names. 

Nonetheless, the success or failure of even the best planned processes comes down to execution. How can ICANN implement these 

processes? What lessons can be learned early in the process to prevent failure? Are there additional safeguards in the event this process doesn’t work as advertised? 

These and other questions are the reason for today’s hearing, and 

I look forward to the testimony of ICANN, the NTIA, and those 

who have had good experiences with the limited expansion of toplevel domain names to date, and those who are still concerned that 

their valuable brands stand to be tarnished by this process. So I 

thank the witnesses for being here today to share their insight. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. At this point I have 1 1⁄2 minutes left, and I would 

yield to the chairman of the full committee, who has a statement 

he wants to put in the record. 

Mr. UPTON. I am just going to insert it in the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. And then I would yield to Mr. Terry for the remainder of my time. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LEE TERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s hearing to discuss this very important topic. I appreciate our witnesses 

joining us here today and look forward to listening to all of your 

testimony. 

I am primarily interested in hearing Mr. Pritz explain the benefits of expanding the number of top-level domain names. I am told 

that this expansion could promote competition and choice in domain address and market, while providing new opportunities for 

organizing information on the Internet or for marketing and services. But how will the Internet users ultimately be affected is the 

ultimate question. 

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has raised concerns 

that new top-level domains could, quote, ‘‘impose substantial additional domain registration costs on many consumers.’’ Others are 

concerned that an increase in the number of top-level domains will 

exacerbate the potential for abuse of the domain name system. In 

my opinion, these concerns should not be taken lightly. The consumer benefits of this proposed expansion should far outweigh any 

potential harms it may cause. 

Mr. Chairman, I again thank you and our expert witnesses here 

today for joining us, and I yield back. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Eshoo from California, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning to all 

Members and the witnesses. 

I welcome today’s hearing to examine ICANN’s proposed rollout 

of new generic top-level domains. This is an exciting time in the 

evolution of the Internet. Domain name registrations across all 

TLDs increased by 2.5 percent between the first and the second 

quarters of this year. And all signs point to continued growth, as 

over 40 percent of the world’s population is expected to come online 

by 2015. That is quite extraordinary, that figure, just in and of 

itself. 

When this subcommittee last examined the issue in June of 

2009, ICANN’s CEO acknowledged the concerns about trademark 

and intellectual property protections, and promised that the new 

rollout of new TLDs would not move forward until these concerns 

had been addressed. 

I am not opposed to the expansion of new gTLDs. I believe, in 

fact, with the right process in place, this program could enable 

new, innovative business models that expand user choice and make 

it easier to find Web sites within a particular category such as hotels, restaurants, drug stores, and other sites. But the written testimony before us suggests that many businesses continue to have 

9 

significant concerns regarding the economic impact, the potential 

for consumer confusion, and increased cybersquatting that could 

occur without proper checks and balances. Our hearing today will 

enable us to explore these issues and determine what steps ICANN 

has taken since our hearing more than 2 years ago. 

The potential rollout of thousands of new gTLDs requires a clear 

understanding of the safeguards being put in place to protect trademarks and copyrights, how disputes between common brand names 

will be addressed, and what costs businesses will incur in defending their brand. Forcing small businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations with limited resources to spend $185,000 per domain 

name just to protect their brands I don’t think is sustainable. 

And despite the enactment of the Anticybersquatting Consumer 

Protection Act in 1999, cybersquatting remains a serious problem. 

In fact, one form of cybersquatting, in which malicious actors register domain names with common misspellings of popular Web 

sites, is particularly pervasive. Collectively, these domain name 

typos receive at least 68.2 million daily visitors, leading to consumer confusion and even fraudulent activity. 

I hope today’s hearing will enable ICANN to find solutions that 

strengthen the gTLD program and address many of the legitimate 

concerns raised by the business community. These include the 

problem of cybersquatting, the potential for consumer confusion, 

and addressing the costs associated with the program. 

So I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here today, 

and I will yield the balance of my time to Ms. Matsui for her opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DORIS O. MATSUI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. MATSUI. Thank you, Ranking Member Eshoo, for yielding me 

time. I am pleased that we are here today, and I would like to 

thank the witnesses for joining us. 

As we all know, next month ICANN plans to begin the process 

of applying for and introducing new gTLDs. I am concerned about 

the impact and potential unintended consequences that this proposal might pose on nonprofits, small businesses, American 

innovators, and consumers. There may also be practical impacts 

such as privacy and cybersecurity that will need consideration. 

Right now there are a number of unanswered questions that remain. We need answers to fundamental questions like will this policy create additional financial burden on brand owners? I am mostly concerned about expansion of second-level domain names, which 

has the potential to dramatically increases costs for rights holders 

for the rising costs associated with defensive registrations and 

guarding against cybersquatting. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe ICANN needs to take a step back, slow 

down, and reexamine this proposal. The Internet is just too valuable an asset for consumers, for businesses, and for the economy 

as a whole. I believe there is a way to get this right, and I encourage all stakeholders to work together to properly address the outstanding concerns. 

10 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing 

today, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. 

The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Are there any members on the Republican side seeking recognition for opening comments? If not, I would turn then to the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased that the 

subcommittee is holding this timely hearing on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. 

Two years ago, the Democratic members of this subcommittee 

sent a letter to then-Commerce Secretary Locke supporting the creation of a permanent instrument to replace the Joint Project Agreement between ICANN and the Department of Commerce. At the 

time, we stated that any such instrument must include a mechanism for the implementation of new generic top-level domains to 

ensure, quote, ‘‘an appropriate consultation with stakeholders,’’ as 

well as periodic reviews. Today we face the first real test of the 

new instrument known as, quote, ‘‘Affirmation of Commitments,’’ 

which was signed by ICANN and the Department of Commerce in 

September 2009. And I want to make sure that the process for the 

upcoming expansion of new gTLDs fully reflects the goals of transparency and accountability called for in the Affirmation of Commitments. 

I have three concerns that I hope today’s panel will address. 

First, cost. It has been estimated that the new gTLD application 

program will bring in $92.5 million in revenue for ICANN, but only 

$36 million of that will be spent on the launch of the program. An 

additional $31 million will be set aside for a contingency reserve 

for litigation and other potential costs. I would like to hear more 

about how ICANN plans to utilize the substantial revenues coming 

in from this program. 

Second, accountability. ICANN has created several new processes 

to address trademark protection concerns with the new gTLDs, 

such as a rapid system to take down infringing domain names and 

a one-stop clearinghouse to allow trademark holders to register and 

protect their marks. Nevertheless, ICANN has not yet selected the 

entities that will run these crucial new programs. With the new 

gTLD program scheduled to launch next month, I am interested to 

learn what ICANN plans to do about this critical challenge. 

And finally, timing. I understand that the development of the 

new gTLD program has gone through a 7-year process involving 

thousands of stakeholders. It is not clear to me, however, why 

there is the urgency to launch up to 500 new gTLDs during the 

first round. I would like to hear today’s witnesses discuss whether 

it makes more sense to consider a phased launch to ensure that 

ICANN has the appropriate resources and procedures in place to 

react to actual demand. A phase-in might also give the global community more time to understand and absorb the impact of the program. 

11 

I am not opposed to the creation of new gTLDs. Expanding the 

number of gTLDs is consistent with ICANN’s mission to promote 

competition and consumer choice. NTIA deserves credit for its diligent work with ICANN through the Government Advisory Committee, and I know the agency will continue to monitor this issue 

closely. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding today’s hearing. I 

look forward to the testimony of our expert panel. Yield back the 

balance of my time. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. 

No other Members seeking recognition, we will move on to the 

panel. 

We appreciate all of you being here today, and your testimony, 

which I have read, it is very informative and helpful. 

We will lead off with Ms. Fiona Alexander, Associate Administrator, Office of International Affairs, National Telecommunications 

and Information Administration. I am delighted to have you here 

this morning. 

One thing just for all the witnesses, you have to push the little 

button to turn the microphone on when it comes your time. And 

you also want to get pretty close to these microphones, or we can’t 

hear you as well. 

So, Ms. Alexander, please go ahead. 

STATEMENTS OF FIONA M. ALEXANDER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, NATIONAL 

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE; KURT PRITZ, SENIOR 

VICE PRESIDENT, STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS (ICANN); DANIEL L. JAFFE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL ADVERTISERS, ON BEHALF OF COALITION FOR RESPONSIBLE INTERNET DOMAIN OVERSIGHT; THOMAS 

EMBRESCIA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, EMPLOY MEDIA; 

ANJALI K. HANSEN, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ATTORNEY, 

COUNCIL OF BETTER BUSINESS BUREAUS; AND JOSHUA S. 

BOURNE, PRESIDENT, THE COALITION AGAINST DOMAIN 

NAME ABUSE 

STATEMENT OF FIONA M. ALEXANDER 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much. 

Good morning, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo, and 

members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to 

you today on behalf of NTIA regarding ICANN’s planned expansion 

of the Internet domain name system through the introduction of 

new generic top-level domain names, or new gTLDs. 

Since its inception in 1998, ICANN has been charged with promoting competition in the registration of domain names, while ensuring the security and stability of the DNS. In 2000 and 2003, 

ICANN conducted a limited expansion of gTLDs. In 2005, it initiated the process we are discussing today. After 6 years of multistakeholder discussion, including input from governments through 

the GAC, ICANN approved the rules for the new gTLD program in 

the form of an applicant guidebook. 

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Expansion of the gTLD space is expected to provide a platform 

for city, geographic, and internationalized domain names, among 

other things. This type of change to the DNS is expected to enhance consumer trust and choice, and reinforce the global nature 

of the Internet. It is also expected that a portion of applications 

will be either generic words or brand-focused as part of business 

development, investment, and start-up plans. 

Within ICANN, the GAC provides governments a meaningful opportunity to participate in the development of policies related to 

DNS issues. Over the last 6 years, NTIA has actively engaged with 

its counterparts in the GAC in developing advice to inform this program. In December 2010, the GAC developed a scorecard of the 

outstanding issues governments had with the program. Between 

February and June of this year, GAC representatives from around 

the world met with the ICANN board and extended face-to-face discussions to review the GAC scorecard and to identify specific differences between GAC advice and the existing version of the applicant guidebook. These unprecedented exchanges resulted in the 

adoption of a number of changes to the program. 

NTIA believes that ICANN improved the new gTLD program by 

incorporating a significant number of proposals from the GAC, including providing law enforcement and consumer protection authorities with more tools than those available in existing gTLDs. 

The fact that not all of the GAC’s proposals were adopted as originally offered does not represent a failure of the process or a setback 

to governments. Rather, it reflects the reality of a multistakeholder 

model. 

As a member of the GAC, NTIA will continue to actively monitor 

and participate in discussions relating to the expansion of new 

gTLDs. NTIA appreciates that certain trademark owners and other 

stakeholders have expressed concerns regarding this program. 

Safeguarding the rights of trademark owners and ensuring appropriate consumer protections as this process moves forward remains 

a priority. As such, NTIA is committed to working with U.S. industry and other stakeholders as the new gTLD program unfolds to 

mitigate any unintended consequences. 

In addition, NTIA intends to continue to collaborate with U.S. 

Government agencies to track their experiences and to coordinate 

the collection of data regarding the effect on consumers and business users. In particular, NTIA, working with other agencies, will 

focus on ensuring that law enforcement concerns are addressed 

through strength in registry and registrar accreditation agreements 

and enhanced contract compliance. 

NTIA will also be encouraging all interested parties to collaborate in the development of metrics to facilitate the review of the 

new gTLD program. We feel strongly that the review must be informed by fact-based, real-time experiences that can be captured by 

data from a variety of sources. 

NTIA is dedicated to maintaining an open, global Internet that 

remains a valuable tool for economic growth, innovation, and the 

free flow of information, goods, and services online. We believe the 

best way to achieve this goal is to continue to actively support and 

participate in multistakeholder Internet governance processes such 

as ICANN. 

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Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify 

this morning. NTIA looks forward to working with Congress, U.S. 

businesses, individuals, and other stakeholders to preserve and enhance the multistakeholder model. It has been a hallmark feature 

of the global Internet institutions that have been responsible for 

the success of the Internet. 

I will be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Alexander follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Ms. Alexander, thank you very much for your testimony and your work at NTIA. 

We are now appreciative of Mr. Kurt Pritz, who is going to testify. He is the senior vice president of ICANN. 

So, Mr. Pritz, thank you for being here, and we look forward to 

your comments. 

STATEMENT OF KURT PRITZ 

Mr. PRITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and 

members of the subcommittee. I am Kurt Pritz, senior vice president for stakeholder relations for ICANN, the Internet Corporation 

for Assigned Names and Numbers. I am very pleased to be testifying before you today. 

After more than 7 years of policy development and implementation planning, on January 12 next year ICANN will start receiving 

applications for new top-level domains, TLDs, such as today’s .com, 

.org, and .edu. ICANN carefully and cautiously developed the requirements for the new gTLD program. And by ICANN, I mean the 

global multistakeholder community made up of governments, intellectual property experts, consumers, large and small businesses, 

not-for-profit organizations, Internet security experts, and Internet 

users. 

The launch of the new gTLD program was part of ICANN’s 

founding mandate when it was formed by the U.S. Government 

over 12 years ago. The implementation of the new gTLD program 

under discussion today is the result of a cautious, deliberative, 

multiyear process on how ICANN will execute on its promise to the 

NTIA to facilitate competition in the domain name system while 

protecting vital security, consumer and business interests. 

Today’s program was refined through thousands of comments in 

no less than 47 extended comment periods, 1,400 pages of comment 

summaries and analysis. Every comment was carefully considered 

and analyzed and addressed over seven versions of the Applicant 

Guidebook. The program, including enhancements and new protections, was created by over 10 independent expert working groups 

and described through 59 explanatory memoranda and independent 

reports and 5 independent economic reports. 

The new gTLD program will be implemented in a measured, limited manner. After the 90-day application window for the first 

round closes, a stringent evaluation process limits new gTLD registries to those entities with the ability to meet the high technical 

and operational requirements with a capacity to responsibly operate parts of the Internet infrastructure. 

That careful review means that the new TLDs, the first new 

TLDs, will not be operational until early 2013, and delegations will 

be spread over time after that. The new TLDs that will come in 

under this program will have significantly increased safeguards 

compared to TLD registries that exist today. ICANN formed teams 

of world-class experts who worked to ensure that new TLDs offer 

more protection for trademark holders and consumers than today’s. 

New trademark protections include a universal trademark clearinghouse, a rapid take-down process, and new methods of recourse 

against wrongdoers. The new safeguards will sharply reduce the 

need for defensive registrations. 

23 

New TLDs will also bring better consumer and security protections. Domain name abuse experts have developed specific measures to combat malicious conduct and provide law enforcement authorities with more tools to fight malfeasance. These include criminal background checks on all applicants, a requirement for 

DNSSEC deployment, maintenance of a thick WHOIS database, 

and centralized access to TLD data. 

In the last decade the number of domain name registrations has 

increased tenfold, enabling more than $3 trillion of commerce annually. 

As with the introduction of any innovation, new TLDs will generate interest and excitement and require a period of learning. 

Internet users have already shown great adaptability, and they will 

find value when it is created as a result of this program. 

What type of innovation is waiting? Dot-brand TLDs are in planning, similar to .gov today that can give consumers immediate 

trust of the site they are visiting. Your constituents know that 

when they type a House.gov address, they are reaching the domain 

managed for the U.S. House of Representatives. Financial industry 

participants are considering financial services TLDs, where banks 

and financial institutions can offer their customers greater trust, 

more secure transactions, and control of the flow of their data. 

Brand managers see a world of creative opportunity, including 

TLDs providing dedicated registrations tailored to meet their customers’ needs. American jobs are already being created to explore 

the benefits and opportunities of new TLDs. 

The important areas under discussion before the committee 

today have been the subject of debate and compromise for many 

years. Together, the Internet community, hearing all the concerns 

raised at the table today, designed a program where new TLDs will 

be more secure; offer greater protections for trademark holders; reduce the need for defensive registrations; more effectively combat 

malicious conduct; and provide competition, innovation, and consumer choice. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify. I am happy to answer any 

questions you have afterward. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pritz follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. All right, Mr. Pritz. Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

Now we are going to hear from Mr. Daniel L. Jaffe, executive 

vice president, National Association of Advertisers, on behalf of the 

Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight. 

Mr. Jaffe, thank you very much for your very detailed testimony. 

We look forward to your comments. 

Mr. JAFFE. Good morning. Thank you. 

Mr. WALDEN. And be sure to turn on the microphone and pull it 

uncomfortably close to your mouth. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL L. JAFFE 

Mr. JAFFE. Good morning. Thank you very much for having me 

here today. We really appreciate the opportunity to discuss what 

we think is one of the most important issues facing the whole of 

the brand community throughout the world. 

My name, as you stated, is Dan Jaffe, and I am executive vice 

president, government relations, for the Association of National Advertisers. I am also appearing on behalf of CRIDO, the Coalition 

for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight. 

CRIDO represents 159 major national and international companies and trade associations that have joined together to oppose the 

virtually unlimited rollout of ICANN’s new top-level domain program. There simply is not widespread support or consensus in 

favor of ICANN’s proposal. Law enforcement agencies, business, 

consumers, nonprofit groups, nongovernmental organizations, and 

even the founding chair of the ICANN Board all have expressed 

very serious reservations about this plan. 

This concern cuts through a diverse and wide swath of major 

participants in the U.S. and the international economy: restaurants 

like Dunkin’ Brands, Burger King, and Papa John’s—and all of 

these are just examples, they don’t cover the whole list—broadcasters, advertisers in 52 countries around the world; financial entities such as American Express and Visa; high-tech companies like 

Dell, HP and 3M; manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, the Kellogg 

Company, and Procter & Gamble and Whirlpool; retailers like 

Walmart, Costco, and many small businesses; automobile manufacturers such as Ford, Chrysler Group, and Toyota, and the list goes 

on and on and on and continues to grow every day. 

There are numerous other entities who are very concerned, including 100 major trade associations representing other wide sectors of the economy and 1.5 million nonprofit organizations like the 

YMCA. And a diverse group of 28 public IGOs, ranging from the 

IMF and OECD to NATO, all believe ICANN’s program is severely 

flawed. Many of them believe that it would impose extraordinary 

costs on the whole global brand community. It is flawed because it 

threatens severe economic harms. 

ICANN’s own studies demonstrate that the program will force 

companies and even individuals, yes, including Members of Congress, to engage in widespread defensive registrations to protect 

their names and reduce capital investment. Companies will have to 

divert major multibillions of dollars’ worth of resources from job 

creation and product development. 

63 

The plan is flawed because consumers will be significantly 

harmed. Vastly increased domain names will cause consumer confusion. The cybersquatting, malware, phishing, and other cyber 

harms that already occur today will only increase exponentially. 

It is flawed because law enforcement officials have said that this 

expansion will make it far more difficult to enforce cybersecurity 

laws. The chair of the Federal Trade Commission just last week 

said this plan would be a, quote, ‘‘disaster’’ for both consumers and 

businesses. The OECD also has just raised serious issues with the 

rollout. 

ICANN has not achieved consensus among stakeholders, something it is required do under its own code of conduct. And there are 

many serious conflict of interest concerns. ANA, and many of the 

members of CRIDO and others objected throughout the ICANN 

process, but ICANN hasn’t listened. 

Recently, NTIA Administrator Strickling made several points 

with which we agree. Consumer trust in the Internet is vitally important. The Internet should not be controlled by any one nation 

or group. And a valid multistakeholder process could result in an 

environment that encourages creativity and innovation. However, 

unfortunately, that is clearly not what is happening today. 

ICANN’s expansion dramatically increases the risk for consumer 

mistrust generated by cyber harms. 

Some try to use scare tactics to claim that we seek to abolish 

ICANN or to have the U.S. Government run the Internet. That is 

totally false. We believe the greatest danger to ICANN is to launch 

headlong into this ill-conceived program without first developing 

the important protections that Chairman Leibowitz, the Government Advisory Committee, the OECD, and other law enforcement 

officials are calling for. 

Members of the subcommittee, there is nothing sacred about the 

January 12 ICANN top-level domain rollout. Before ICANN proceeds, it should step back, conduct real and careful studies and 

analysis to justify the expansion. It should then, in an extremely 

detailed and analytical manner, explain to the Department of Commerce, the Congress, and the entire online community how this 

plan will benefit the public interest, both here and abroad, as is required under the Affirmation of Commitments between ICANN and 

the DOC. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jaffe follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Jaffe, thank you very much for your very thorough testimony. We are pleased to have you here. 

Now we are going to turn to Mr. Thomas Embrescia, CEO of Employ Media. 

Mr. Embrescia, thank you for your testimony as an Internet domain manager and registrar. So we thank you for being here. We 

look forward to your comments. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS EMBRESCIA 

Mr. EMBRESCIA. Thank you, Chairman Walden and Ranking 

Member Eshoo and members of the distinguished subcommittee. I 

am happy to be here today with you. I am going to talk about myself as a current registry operator, one of the 22 that exist running 

.jobs. I am also going to talk to you about—and I don’t want to date 

myself—my history as a licensed broadcast holder, radio and television stations over the past 40 years, right here. 

I woke up this morning in my hotel, and on the hotel television 

channel they were talking about the things that you should see 

while you are in Washington, D.C. And one of the things that 

caught my attention was a statue of someone sitting in front of an 

old radio listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt talking, these family talks on a weekly basis. So I am not quite that old, but I do 

go back to being raised when AM radio was the be-all/end-all on 

what was happening. 

When I came out of college in Ohio, I got a job on an FM radio 

station when no one even knew what that was. The frequency 

wasn’t around. And thanks to the wiseness of Congress, they mandated that automobile dealers put FM frequencies in the cars, and 

FM flourished. It took off. It gave me an opportunity to start on 

an FM band, create a channel. We narrowcasted where AM stations were all things to all people, they provided service for everyone; where FM stations went and suddenly became all rock or all 

country, soft AC. 

In the 1980s, I see Congressman Latta just walked out of the 

room, from Ohio, but in his district, in Toledo, Ohio, the big television stations were VHF channels 2 through 13. You, in your 

wiseness, had created a UHF band, but no one knew what to do 

with it. But entrepreneurism and job opportunity created guys like 

me who created a television station in Toledo, Ohio, in 1985, built 

it from scratch, put it on the air. And suddenly the Fox Network 

flourished and took off and created jobs and opportunities and businesses. 

Then I saw the same thing happen with cable, which at one time 

was strictly designed to fill in holes in rural areas in Tennessee 

and surrounding communities. But suddenly they decided content 

was important, and they started to create channels by 

narrowcasting again. And who thought 24–7 CNN, ESPN, MTV, 

and my favorite, the Food Channel, that I watch all the time and 

what I am doing. 

And suddenly in 2000 this opportunity arose when ICANN came 

back and created a proof of concept round in 2004. And we were 

offered the opportunity to create a trusted valued source on the 

Internet for content. Ours happens to be HR-related. We 

superserve that community and do it well. And that is what we do. 

108 

And we see this expansion, quite frankly, as history repeating 

itself. 

You have been wise in what you have allowed in the spectrum 

allocation, and people being creative and being able to use their initiative to create jobs, better consumer opportunities, better information on a consistent basis. I firmly believe in what we have created here in the U.S. in opportunity and the wisdom of people to 

be smart about how to do this. And sure, could there be bad operators? Could there be people that have some problems? I am confident that ICANN’s multistakeholder model can serve that purpose. 

And so I am here today to support that expansion as an existing 

operator, looking back at history and watching my own history of 

how spectrum, broadband width has created opportunity, jobs, better opportunities for consumers. So I thank you for that, and I welcome any comments you have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Embrescia follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Embrescia, thank you very much. And some of 

us actually remember AM radio as well. 

Ms. Hansen, we are delighted to have you here as well. Ms. 

Anjali Hansen, intellectual property attorney for the Council of 

Better Business Bureaus. Ms. Hansen, thank you for your testimony, and please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF ANJALI K. HANSEN 

Ms. HANSEN. Good morning. My name is Anjali Hansen. I am the 

intellectual property attorney of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which is the umbrella organization for the 116 Better Business Bureaus across North America. 

The Better Business Bureaus are a network of nonprofit organizations. For the past 100 years, our mission has been to build trust 

between consumers and businesses in the marketplace. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Eshoo, and members of the subcommittee. Our organization greatly appreciates this opportunity to 

testify and tell you about the challenges that we face every day to 

keep our brand and logos out of the hands of fraudulent and criminal elements that run rampant on the Internet. The new top-level 

domains will increase these threats exponentially if ICANN does 

not put additional protective measures in first. 

Today I am going to focus my testimony on three grave problems 

that I face every day protecting our trusted marks on the Internet. 

The first problem is the massive abuse of our marks on third-party 

Web sites. Every day I am bombarded with reports and links to 

Web sites that display our BBB torch logo and our accredited business seals without authorization. Fraudulently operated businesses 

copy the logos to defraud consumers into thinking that they are 

dealing with a reliable source. Combating these infringements 

takes a great deal of time. It can be difficult to shut down Web 

sites if the Web hosting company or registrar is not cooperative, 

and it is very costly to our organization. 

In addition, our organization is routinely subject to sophisticated 

phishing attacks that defraud consumers into believing that BBB 

is sending them an email, but which instead, upon clicking on the 

Web link within the email, infects their computers with viruses. 

The architects of these phishing scams have used the very symbol 

of trust, our BBB name and logo, to victimize unsuspecting businesses and consumers. 

ICANN needs to come up with better controls over fraud at this 

level. Frauds and criminals can currently easily purchase domain 

names and Web sites from registrars and Web hosting companies 

and then use them for illicit purposes with impunity. 

The third and final major problem that I face in protecting our 

trusted marks on the Internet is cybersquatting. Cybersquatters 

register brand owners’ trademarks as their own domain names. For 

example, they will register BBB.net, BBB.com, BBB.info. So most 

brand owners have adopted the costly practice of purchasing their 

own domain names and trademarks in all of the major top-level domains. This is called defensive registration, as you noted earlier. 

BBB has over 300 domain names, most of which are defensive registrations, and there are currently only 22 top-level domains. So 

120 

with the expansion, there will be hundreds, and the cost to defensively register will quickly become prohibitive. 

Under ICANN’s proposed framework of trademark protections, it 

will have a centralized trademark clearinghouse which each brand 

owner can register their trademark in for a fee. But registering our 

trademarks in this clearinghouse only guarantees us the first right 

to buy or block our trademarks in domains in each of the new toplevel domains. Instead, ICANN should ensure that trademarks registered in the trademark clearinghouse cannot be sold to anyone 

other than the trademark owner in any of these new registries. 

The practice of having to defensively register our trademarks in 

each top-level domains needs to stop. This practice simply provides 

an unjustified windfall of profits to registries and registrars, and 

takes resources away from brand holders. The most recent top-level 

domain to be brought online, the now famous .xxx, just profited 

enormously from the over 90,000 domains paid to be blocked by 

trademark owners who do not want their names associated with 

that registry. In conclusion, even more astounding was the fact 

that the .xxx registry refused to accept registration of our most famous mark, BBB, because it was allowed by ICANN to reserve 

BBB.xxx as a premium name that it can later auction off to the 

highest bidder. 

Thank you again for taking the time to listen to the issues I and 

many other brand owners face, which include small businesses and 

nonprofits. These practices have the net effect of imposing major 

consumer harm. If ICANN does not address these issues, it should 

not set forth on its plans to increase the number of top-level domains. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hansen follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Ms. Hansen, thank you for the good work of the 

Better Business Bureau and for being here today and sharing your 

concerns. 

We will go now to Mr. Joshua S. Bourne, president of the Coalition against Domain Name Abuse. 

Mr. Bourne, we are delighted to have you here today. Pull that 

microphone close, and we look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF JOSHUA S. BOURNE 

Mr. BOURNE. It is uncomfortably close, as you said. 

Well, thank you very much. Good morning, Chairman Walden. 

Good morning, Ranking Member Eshoo and distinguished members 

of the committee. Thank you for convening this hearing on the intention of ICANN to expand the number of new gTLDs that will 

be made available to the public. As you know, ICANN’s Board approved this policy on June 20 of this year, and ICANN plans to 

open the first and only announced application period on January 

12. 

Given the significant impact that this policy will have on the 

Internet and the recent dialogue about it, CADNA truly appreciates the chairman’s decision to hold this hearing today. As you 

said, my name is Josh Bourne, and I am the president of CADNA. 

Over 4 years ago, with the help of leading brand owners, we founded CADNA, which is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit association, to combat a 

variety of abuses on the Internet. CADNA represents businesses 

vital to the American and global economies from a wide range of 

commercial industries, and our members include companies such as 

Dell, DirecTV, Eli Lilly, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, LEGO, Marriott, 

New York Life, and Wells Fargo. 

Our mission is more relevant today than it has ever been as we 

look for solutions to reduce or eliminate cybersquatting and to work 

constructively with ICANN, the U.S. Congress, the Department of 

Commerce, and all other stakeholders to improve the gTLD policy, 

ultimately supporting all who agree that this policy has flaws and 

should not move forward without further refinement. 

Our current recommendations are a result of a long process that 

started after the ICANN Board approved the gTLD policy back in 

June. Through countless calls and meetings with brand owners, 

public and private Internet governance experts, trade associations, 

and the U.S. Government, we identified several aspects of the policy that were driving the majority of anxiety in the business community that would lead to unacceptable costs for businesses and 

open the door to new opportunities for cybercriminals. 

Fortunately, according to Module 6, Term and Condition Number 

14 in ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook, quote, ‘‘ICANN reserves the 

right to make reasonable updates and changes to this Applicant 

Guidebook and to the application process at any time.’’ ICANN’s recent change to include a provision for applicants to file for financial 

support is an example of how the organization can still introduce 

productive improvements into the new gTLD program. If ICANN 

needs more time to get these items done, then it should strongly 

consider delaying the application period or commit to acting upon 

these recommendations. 

129 

Our research efforts and conversations with hundreds of potential participants in the application process have resulted in several 

recommendations. I will be the first to admit that they need further refinement and development, and there may be more adjustments necessary; however, CADNA believes that they can serve as 

the basis for further dialogue with the Internet community and 

ICANN. 

If the new gTLD policy moves forward, here are some concrete 

steps that can be taken to improve the conditions surrounding it. 

First, a declaration by ICANN of when the next applicant round 

will take place would relieve much of the anxiety surrounding the 

first application period. CADNA has found that businesses feel 

forced into applying for new gTLDs in this first round lest they be 

put at a disadvantage relative to their competitors, who may gain 

an edge by acquiring their own gTLDs. 

Second, businesses are worrying about dealing with 

cybersquatting that will occur to the left of the dot in the new 

space. In other words, they are worried about the abuse and defensive registrations that they will need to pay for in open-registrymodel new gTLDs in order to reduce the impact cybersquatting will 

have on their businesses and customers. To alleviate this issue, 

ICANN should require open registries to give brand owners the option to buy low-cost blocks on their trademarks before any registration period opens. This could be offered at a lower cost than sunrise 

registrations have been priced at in the past. And this precedent 

has been set with the blocks offered by ICM registry in .xxx, where 

the blocks are made in perpetuity for a single nonrecurring fee. 

Third, if ICANN is awarded a new IANA contract, NTIA should 

consider awarding it for a short period of time, perhaps only 1 or 

2 years, and during that time there should be an evaluation of 

whether ICANN followed through on its commitments with regard 

to the gTLD process, and an extension of the contract should be 

contingent on conducting internal reforms to improve governance 

and transparency. 

I see that I am running out of time. May I have a little bit of 

additional time? I have only got one more page. 

Mr. WALDEN. Finish your testimony, yes, sir, please. 

Mr. BOURNE. Thank you. 

Fourth, the U.S. Congress should immediately update the 

Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, or ACPA, in such a 

way that not only curbs and deters cybersquatting in the existing 

TLDs, what we have today, but anything that might come in the 

future. 

To ease the cost on private enterprises and nonprofits alike, to 

ease the anxiety on the business community, and to ensure that 

consumers are shielded from chaos and fraud as much as possible, 

we need to identify and prioritize achievable solutions. Commitments from ICANN, Congress, and the administration that they 

will implement these proposals would go a long way, but, in the 

end, more time and a formal process to review the policy may be 

necessary. 

Mr. Chairman, you have been an outspoken leader on Internet 

issues and on Internet governance. CADNA would like to seize this 

opportunity with you and your committee to constructively improve 

130 

the current policy to the benefit of all Internet users. We should 

harness the renewed attention that CADNA’s colleagues in the association, corporate and nonprofit worlds, as well as Members of 

the U.S. Congress and the administration have given the new 

gTLD program lately by pursuing necessary and achievable fixes 

such as those we have laid out. Thank you for this time and this 

opportunity to speak before you and your distinguished committee 

this morning. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bourne follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Bourne, thank you very much for coming 

today. 

And to all our witnesses, thank you very much for your enlightening testimony. 

Mr. Pritz, I want to start with you. At the Senate Commerce 

hearing last week on the issue, you announced that ICANN would 

reduce the fee for a new gTLD to $47,000 for applicants in the need 

of financial assistance. So I have a couple of questions here. How 

can ICANN determine what constitutes an applicant in need of financial assistance? Will lowering the fee ironically make it more 

affordable for individuals with bad intent to engage in 

cybersquatting? And does ICANN have the ability to delay? 

Mr. PRITZ. The criteria for awarding financial assistance, as all 

things, was developed by the ICANN community. And so seeing 

this issue, a cross-constituency group was formed to consider this 

issue and develop the criteria by which applications for financial 

aid would be considered. And they are, one—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Can you make that available to us then, whatever 

those criteria are that would meet this? 

Mr. PRITZ. I certainly can, both the working group report and 

then the staff embodiment of that that was passed by the ICANN 

Board, which are operation in the public interest, a TLD operating 

in the public interest; an applicant that is truly needy that can 

demonstrate it in some way. But to address your second question 

really, an applicant that demonstrates some financial and operational wherewithal, either managing big projects in the past or 

some financial backing from other sources. And so under each of 

those criteria there are subcriteria to measure each of the applicants. 

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Pritz, you have heard the testimony. I mean, 

you are involved in this very, very deeply. It seems like there is 

concern pretty strongly expressed, representing a pretty broadbased set of organizations, that this may not be quite ready for 

prime time. Do you have the ability to delay? And what would that 

entail? 

Mr. PRITZ. So we are really responsive to the broad Internet community, and so here is why we think the solutions that we have 

in place for protections are good, and here is why we think the 

process is done. We think they are good—one of the hallmarks of 

the ICANN model is that when we are faced with creating a set 

of trademark protections, we can get a bunch of world-class IP experts in a room from all over the world and have an extended 

meeting over a period of months and have real experts in those 

fields develop protections. You know, how would you go about it? 

You would get experts in trademark protection. We got experts in 

malicious conduct mitigation, such as the head of the Anti-Phishing 

Working Group and other first responders. They are the ones we 

rely on to develop these solutions. 

Mr. WALDEN. So I guess one of the suggestions involved some 

sort of trademark clearinghouse, where if you registered your 

trademark there, then you wouldn’t have go pay the registrars to 

protect it defensively everywhere else. Is that something that is 

reasonable? Is that something that could be done? Was it recommended in the process? 

140 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. So the trademark clearinghouse exists. And the 

purpose of the clearinghouse is that so that trademark holders 

don’t have to register with each new TLD for protections. They only 

have to register once, and all TLDs are obligated to utilize that 

clearinghouse in providing services. And the details behind how 

that operates was developed by this set of 18 intellectual property 

experts that over a period of months developed the details behind 

it. 

Mr. WALDEN. Let me go to maybe Mr. Bourne or Mr. Jaffe to 

comment on does that process work? Is it as recommended? Mr. 

Jaffe? 

Mr. JAFFE. We don’t believe so. And I think this is a classic example of how what is called consensus really is not. 

What ICANN did is they created a group, which is called the Implementation Recommendation Team, which was a group of 18 experts in trademark protection on the Internet. In the statement 

presented to ICANN and the public at large, the IRT noted that a 

sizable—I emphasize a sizable—number of our team would have 

preferred status quo, with no new gTLDs until better rights protection mechanisms are in place for the existing gTLDs. 

In addition, the IRT emphasized that others in the IRT group favored only the measured introduction of community-based gTLDs. 

While it was true that a few of the members thought that it should 

go forward, that is far from consensus. The broader group said 

don’t do anything, or if you are going to do something, do it in a 

very small rollout, just as Congressman Waxman was talking 

about. 

So you can’t just claim that there is consensus; you have got to 

actually look and see how it works within their organization. And 

there wasn’t consensus there or in many other areas. 

Mr. WALDEN. With the indulgence of the committee, Mr. Bourne, 

could you comment on this? 

Mr. BOURNE. Yes. Thank you. 

Two things that I want to say about that. One is 2 weeks ago 

I was on-site with a pharmaceutical company. They are in consumer health, they are in many areas. They have amassed tens of 

thousands of domain names that they registered. And I thought to 

ask them, I said, how many .xxx blocks did you buy? They immediately answered, over 100. And they said it was probably the best 

investment that they have made in a long time, though, because 

they never have to pay for them again. 

So this is a really smart and innovative idea of ICM registry, 

whereas other registries and registrars typically charge a rent or 

a tax annually on all those BBB domains and everything else. And 

it is a painful, forever, ongoing process to secure and maintain a 

portfolio of those clearly descriptive domain names. So that is 

something that ICANN, I think, should make mandatory if this 

thing moves forward, to require all registries to make it more costeffective for businesses. 

And the second thing that occurs to me is that today we have got 

200 million domains, give or take. We have 22 gTLDs, this is true, 

but we also have hundreds of country code domains around the 

world. About half of them are in .com, about 100 million. And there 

are probably tens of millions of cybersquatted domain names. 

141 

We have a serious problem in the traditional space with respect 

to cybersquatting. I think that if Congress has one in a most outstanding role in all of this, it is to pursue updating a 1999 law that 

has not led to any deterrence whatsoever, the ACPA. And it is 

something that the Judiciary Committees are looking at now. 

Mr. WALDEN. All right. I am going to have to cut you off. The 

committee has been very indulgent. I went about a minute and a 

half over. 

Before I recognize my friend, the ranking member, I would like 

to insert in the record letters from the Center for Association Leadership and from Name.Space, Inc., who have written the committee 

with comments as well. Without objection, they will be entered into 

the record. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. WALDEN. And I now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Eshoo. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of 

the witnesses today. I think this is an excellent panel. 

Let me start out with my impression. I don’t think this is ready 

for prime time. You have been at this for 6 years. And I am not 

suggesting that people haven’t put in, obviously, a good amount of 

time, but it seems to me that during this time, that the opportunity 

with that time was to work out the differences and I think the legitimate concerns that we are hearing today. So it is ICANN, but 

then I think it is turning into ‘‘I can’t.’’ 

So I think that the suggestion that this be delayed, and that consensus is developed by the various stakeholders, is a very reasonable one and a very important one, because I fear that if we go 

ahead, if you go ahead with this, this is extraordinarily costly, 

number one. I mean, I always look at the nonprofit world first, and 

it is my understanding that the application fee, Mr. Pritz, to obtain 

a top-level domain name is approximately $185,000—that is a lot 

of money for a small business, for nonprofits—with an annual cost 

following that of $25,000. And you stated that it is a cost-based fee. 

How did you come up with this? Can you deconstruct it for me 

just rather quickly, because I have a whole series of questions on 

what the fee covers, what the money goes toward in the gTLD process. Just very quickly. 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. Certainly. So the fee covers the cost of the evaluation. The evaluation is extensive. 

Ms. ESHOO. How did you come up with that? How did you evaluate the evaluation? Who is doing what that they need to be paid 

this kind of money, and where does it go? Is it salaries? What is 

it? 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. There is six different evaluations provided by 

independent evaluators, and we have hired multiple firms to do 

that. They will evaluate each application that they have, the technical and operational—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Did you shop it or—— 

Mr. PRITZ. We certainly shopped it. We did a public request for 

proposals, we interviewed applicants, and we negotiated fees. 

So the other part of this is we want to be very careful how we 

delegate these TLDs. We want to delegate them only to those entities that have the financial and operational wherewithal to operate 

a register—— 

Ms. ESHOO. I understand that there is a subsidy of some—a pot 

of, what, $2 million? Is it 2 million? 

Mr. PRITZ. The ICANN Board made—that is sort of a different 

issue. The ICANN Board made a $2 million set-aside as a seed 

fund—— 

Ms. ESHOO. For the whole wide world to—— 

Mr. PRITZ. For helping needy applicants. 

Ms. ESHOO. I mean, that is a pittance. I mean, once that is used 

by a handful of organizations, then what happens? 

Mr. PRITZ. Then there will be second rounds, and there will 

be—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Second rounds of how much and by when? 

149 

Mr. PRITZ. The second round? The second round of new TLDs 

will occur after ICANN has met its obligations to the NTIA, the 

U.S. Government, other governments and trademark holders to 

test the efficacy of its protections and to ensure that roots own operation remains stable. 

Ms. ESHOO. What kind of mechanisms are in place to ensure that 

there won’t be a proliferation of phishing? This has been mentioned 

by more than one person today and other scams in this new space. 

Mr. PRITZ. We are sure at the end of the day we are creating a 

safer environment for—— 

Ms. ESHOO. How are you sure? How? 

Mr. PRITZ [continuing]. And trademark owners. 

Two ways. One is that the new TLDs will have trademark protections and malicious conduct mitigations, very specific tools that 

existing TLDs don’t have. 

Ms. ESHOO. You know what I am struck by? I am struck by the 

following, and that is that major issues are left to after you begin 

rather than developing the consensus before we move forward, and 

I think that that is really what has risen up in the testimony 

today. And that is what I think is really troubling. 

Let me read this to you. It is from a constituent. Dear Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, you are a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and will be holding a hearing on ICANN’s new 

gTLD program Wednesday, December 14th. For those of us in the 

IT business who are swimming in spam, please ask ICANN why 

the law enforcement amendments to the registrar contract have not 

been adopted, and why that process is not occurring with full disclosure. My personal sense is that ICANN is more interested in 

protecting spammers than they are in protecting the public. Regards, Lyle. 

So how would you respond to Lyle? 

Mr. PRITZ. Of course ICANN is not interested in protecting 

spammers. 

Ms. ESHOO. But what are you doing—— 

Mr. PRITZ. ICANN is in active face-to-face negotiations with registrars to implement those 12 law enforcement recommendations 

into the registrar accreditation agreement. The fastest way to implement them is in this face-to-face negotiation. We publish the results of each meeting on our Web site so that the community can 

be kept up to date with the status of the negotiations and the implementations that are—— 

Ms. ESHOO. Who is negotiating, though? Who is negotiating with 

whom? 

Mr. PRITZ. This is a bilateral agreement that ICANN has with 

each of the registrars that sell domain names like Go Daddy and 

NSI. So it is a bilateral agreement. So it is a bilateral—— 

Ms. ESHOO. And how many of them have been struck? 

Mr. PRITZ. How many—— 

Ms. ESHOO. How many have been struck, bilateral agreements 

that you are talking about? Or is this after the fact? 

Mr. PRITZ. Because there are 900 registrars, we are negotiating 

with a representative group of registrars so that we can reach 

agreement that these law enforcement protections will be implemented in all of the agreements simultaneously. 

150 

Ms. ESHOO. I have gone way over my time, and I thank the 

chairman for his patience. If I could just ask this, and you can answer it. If this subcommittee were to ask you to delay, what would 

your response be? 

Mr. PRITZ. I would say that this process has not been rushed. It 

is 7 years in the making. It is well thought out. How do we know 

we are done? Every issue has been discussed. No new issues have 

been raised. The trademark protections that are in place were developed by experts. At the end we were debating nuances of those. 

The people at this table participated in that debate and helped 

craft those RPMs as they were made. 

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentlelady from California. 

I now recognize the vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Mr. Terry. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Ms. Alexander, you look bored. Nobody is asking you questions, so I am going to step up to the plate. Last December, the Department of Commerce sent a letter to ICANN’s former president 

Rod Beckstrom expressing concern about ICANN’s apparent failure 

to carry out its obligations as specified in the Affirmation of Commitments. In particular the Department of Commerce was troubled 

that ICANN was moving forward with the gTLD expansion without 

having proven that the benefits of expansion outweighed the costs. 

It seems to be the fundamental question here today in our discussion. So what has changed since last year? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much for the question. We did, 

in fact, send a letter last December, and as a result of that letter, 

we then worked with colleagues from around the world and the 

Governmental Advisory Committee and developed a scorecard of 81 

different pieces of advice the government and even ICANN in this 

program. The Board then sat in very extensive face-to-face negotiations and deliberations with the group of governments to resolve all 

of these issues, and from our perspective, many, if not all, of those 

issues have been addressed. 

I think what we are seeing here today is the fact that a multistakeholder, consensus-based process doesn’t mean every stakeholder agrees or unanimity in the process. Until we actually—the 

program unrolls and we see effective implementation of the safeguards that have been described, there will be predictions of those 

that want this and those that don’t. 

So we are very—at this point I think we are looking for facts, 

and facts based on what actually happens going forward. And 

again, it is really key that there be effective implementation of the 

safeguards that the GAC was able to get through this process. 

Mr. TERRY. You said in your answer that they adopted most of 

the recommendations. In the grouping of ‘‘not accepted,’’ are there 

any of those that are of concern to you? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Not to the United States. There was a set of 

recommendations that the Board didn’t agree to. The Board action 

is consistent with U.S. law. It was European colleagues that were 

concerned that this sets up a different set of trademarks. But what 

was adopted and agreed to in the Board is consistent with U.S. 

law, so we were happy with the response. 

151 

Mr. JAFFE. Congressman, can I just say one thing in regard to 

that? 

Mr. TERRY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JAFFE. There is this Government Advisory Committee that 

works with ICANN. There were 12 issues that they had put forward to—and this was already mentioned by Mr. Pritz—as very 

fundamental to the protection of the registrars and registries from 

being infiltrated by criminal activities. Of those 12, only 3 have 

even been examined by ICANN, and none of them, none of them, 

have been actually acted upon. 

I would think that those would be somewhat important things 

still standing out there when the Chairman of the FTC says that 

this proposal would be a disaster both to business and consumers, 

not the kind of language that he uses usually. That would be very 

serious. I could show you a chart that shows that there are serious 

holes in the protections that ICANN claims to put forward, if that 

would be all right with the committee. 

Mr. TERRY. I would ask you to do that. 

Mr. JAFFE. Can I put up the posterboard with the—I would call 

it the so-called Mickey Mouse posterboard. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. I won’t ask why. 

Mr. PRITZ. Congressman, can I make a correction while the board 

gets put up? 

Mr. TERRY. Sure. I will give you 15 seconds. 

Mr. PRITZ. The Government Advisory Committee and ICANN examined 12 issues and 80 subissues regarding trademark protections and malicious conduct measures, and got to agreement on 90 

percent of them. What Mr. Jaffe is talking about are the 12 coincidentally law enforcement recommendations that we are seeking 

to—— 

Mr. TERRY. OK. I appreciate that clarification. 

Mr. JAFFE. And by the way, though, those discussions have been 

going on for a number of years now. 

What you see over here is the key—one of the key aspects of protecting the Internet is actually being able to know who stands behind an IP address. This is very important for companies and consumers if they are being somehow harmed on the Internet. 

What you see here is that when you actually go to existing registrars and to what is called the thicker WHOIS, which is one of 

the things that ICANN has particularly stressed as a protection, 

you find that you have people who are registered as Mickey 

Mouse—and this is literal—Donald Duck. If you look—I don’t know 

if you can see it here—— 

Mr. TERRY. I wish I could. 

Mr. JAFFE. But the addresses are clearly fraudulent. Anybody 

would see that immediately, and yet they have not acted on this. 

And this is not just—we have some examples, but they could be 

multiplied many times. 

If you can’t tell who is causing the harms on the Internet—and 

there is, by the way, no requirement that there be a thicker 

WHOIS. ICANN recommends it, but doesn’t demand it. But even 

if they demand it, and it is not actually carried out, this creates 

a massive hole in their protection system. And to roll out a new 

supertanker with a clear hole in the hull is not something that we 

152 

would want to put much of the business and brand community, and 

most of the consumer community, and much of the not-for-profit 

community on board until it has been tested out. 

This seems to me these problems should be solved first, and then 

we should go forward with a major rollout. And we are talking 

about 1,000 potential names. Mr. Pritz in the last hearing specifically went from 300 to 500, which we said was a 1,200 to 2,300 percent increase, and saying that they might even go to 1,000 names 

in the first—— 

Mr. TERRY. My time is gone. And hopefully, Mr. Pritz, someone 

will ask you to reply to that so we can get the point, counterpoint. 

Mr. WALDEN. I now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. 

Matsui. 

Ms. MATSUI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I only have 5 minutes, so if you can be as crisp as possible. 

Mr. Jaffe, in your testimony you noted the proliferation of domain names that would raise costs for domain name owners for 

things like defensive registrations and monitoring. Can you summarize these costs briefly? 

Mr. JAFFE. Yes, I can. And I will try to be brief. But it is important to understand that for our members, they often have hundreds, even thousands, of brands. So these numbers have—you first 

get the numbers, and then you have to figure out how it might 

multiply through the process. There is a $185,000 registration fee. 

That doesn’t mean that you get the registration. That is just to get 

into the game. Then if you get the registration, it is $25,000 per 

year, and you have to keep the registration for 10 years. This basically wipes out all medium-sized and small groups. 

That is not all the costs. There is diversion of Internet-using consumers to other sites, lost sales, damaged reputation, goodwill, and 

the cost to monitor the Internet for such abusive conduct, the cost 

of UDRP actions, anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000. And the list 

goes on and on. It is an extraordinarily expensive program for the 

business community. 

Ms. MATSUI. Ms. Hansen, would you agree with that? 

Ms. HANSEN. Definitely. 

Ms. MATSUI. OK. I have a series of other questions, but I must 

say that I want to get to the point here of the hearing, I believe. 

I really don’t believe this is ready for prime time. I agree with 

my colleague Ms. Eshoo on this. My concern is, yes, you have got 

6, 7 years they have been working on this, but there are many 

issues that we have been working on for 6 or 7 years that we just 

don’t know where to go because you can be talking—every issue 

can be out there, every fact can be out there. But quite frankly, it 

is who emphasizes these issues that are really very important. 

This is not at all related to what is happening here today, but 

we have a huge water issue in California. We have been working 

on that for decades, and we know about every single fact and issue 

there is, but we still can’t get to a situation where we have the 

right transparency, accountability and governance. And I think this 

is what this is all about. You seem to believe that this has to be 

done, the implementation has to go forward, and you have already 

talked about it for years or discussed it. So therefore, 6, 7 years 

should be enough. We will just call it, we will go ahead with it. 

153 

I believe at the very beginning ICANN had a certain mission, 

and I think we have gone off track here. So what I am saying, if 

ICANN is—as you are saying, can’t delay its implementation, 

would you consider a pilot project? I mean, we are looking at this 

right now of let us say no more than 50 total domain names to see 

how it works, and then see its benefits before rolling out the full 

program, because once it takes off, I don’t know how we will deal 

with this. 

Mr. Pritz. 

Mr. PRITZ. ICANN does have a mission to increase competition 

and choice, It is baked into our DNA, to create competition in the 

Internet. It has done that since the very beginning. This committee 

chided ICANN in 2001 for moving too slowly on new TLDs when 

it made a very limited round, an introduction. The title of the hearing included ‘‘Is ICANN Thwarting Competition?’’ Our mission is to 

create competition but in a safe and stable way. And what we want 

to do, what I am as passionate about, or more passionate about, 

than people here are launching new TLDs to improve the environment for consumers and trademark holders. 

Ms. MATSUI. Let me say this, Mr. Pritz. We know a lot more now 

about cybersquatting and all the nefarious things that can happen 

on the Internet. We are dealing with it every single day. I mean, 

let us face it, we are dealing with the Internet much more frequently than we did before. 

And this is like—we are trying to do something on a worldwide 

basis now. I don’t know where the governance of this comes in. It 

is a private non-profit, and it seems to have morphed into a lucrative business. And we may not have nefarious motives, but we 

don’t know what would happen once it takes off, especially if it is 

international. There are countries around the world who don’t have 

the same standards we have, and even though you might be dealing with people who are very intelligent, the governance, the accountability, the transparency is not apparent to me. And I truly 

believe that there is a way to delay this that would be most helpful 

so we can have a discussion about some of these governance things 

that I think are very important. 

Do you have a comment on that at all, Mr. Pritz? 

Mr. PRITZ. Certainly ICANN is one of the most transparent, accountable organizations there is, as has been measured by others. 

And I just want to talk specifically about cybersquatting. 

Cybersquatting will be reduced in new TLDs, one, because there 

is new protections; and two is cybersquatting occurs in the great 

big TLDs like COM and the others. That is where it pays off. That 

is where malicious conduct pays off. By distributing names in more 

TLDs, it will serve to reduce the amount of cybersquatting. There 

is no incentive—— 

Ms. MATSUI. I see where my time is—I am sure it is gone. But 

I must say this right now, that our constituents are telling us they 

use the Internet, and they are very concerned. And, you know, I 

look at things at the granular level, at the ground level, and quite 

frankly, it has caught their attention, it has caught our attention. 

I think we need to look at ways to delay this. 

I thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. 

154 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you for your participation and good questions. 

We have a letter here from Rebecca M.J. Gould, vice president 

of global government relations and public policy from Dell, Inc., 

which we would like to submit in the record. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 

155 


75155.125
156 

Mr. WALDEN. Now I turn to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 

Gingrey, for 5 minutes for questions. We welcome your comments. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And I really thank the 

witnesses. I think we have excellent witnesses on both sides of this 

issue. 

And speaking of issue, I would like to go back to the line of questioning that my friend, the gentlelady from California, had in regard to the cost. And I want to continue along that line, Mr. Pritz. 

This ICANN or ‘‘I can’t,’’ but ICANN is a nonprofit—or not-for-profit organization. And you set a fee of $185,000. And, of course, I 

think you did describe in your dialogue with Congresswoman 

Eshoo, the ranking member, where some of those funds went or 

how you arrived at the number, the top number. But it seems to 

me that in a nonprofit situation you could have picked any number. 

If you can afford to allow people who are in need, whatever that 

definition is, to get this domain for $47,000, then it seems to me 

that the markup—it almost sounds like a Joseph A. Banks twofer 

sale—that maybe the price of 185- is a little bit overpricing it. 

And what is the salaries of those people like yourself and others 

who are top-level management of ICANN? You know, nonprofits 

are really bad about that; not necessarily ICANN, but a lot of nonprofits. So naturally we would be a little bit concerned about that. 

And maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on that. 

Mr. PRITZ. Sure. I wish ICANN was bad about overpaying its 

staff. The 185,000—so as an operational manager, I will tell you 

that it is spent. And ICANN has published memos outlining where 

the costs will go. Most of it goes to the evaluation itself. There are 

six different evaluations that—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Let me interrupt you right there because that 

raises a red flag for me. Why do you have to have six different 

evaluations? Why not two or three? 

Mr. PRITZ. Because we have been talking about protecting consumers and trademark owners, and we want to—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Why not 12? 

Mr. PRITZ. So again, what is great about ICANN is it gets to rely 

on experts in Internet security and trademark protection. And we 

ask them what evaluations should be done on these applicants in 

order to ensure improved safety and security in the Internet and 

these—these evaluations to ensure they have the economic and 

operational wherewithal to run a registry? We do criminal background checks. We do background checks to ensure they are not involved in domain name misappropriations in the past. We want to 

make sure that domain—the top-level domain won’t result in consumer confusion. And so these are most of the checks we are doing 

to ensure that only those that will operate the registry in a responsible way will be awarded these things, because we want to improve the environment for consumers. 

Mr. GINGREY. I think you have done a pretty good job in responding to me on justification of the cost. Some of my colleagues on the 

other side of the dais have expressed their feeling that they don’t 

think this is ready for prime time. I will have to admit to you I 

am not sure whether or not it is ready for prime time, and I guess 

that remains to be seen. 

157 

In the remaining minute and a half, let me move to Mr. Jaffe 

and ask him this question. Mr. Jaffe, within the nonprofit world, 

how might this expansion increase incidents of online predator 

crimes where, for example, the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts have 

to keep their name off either this new .xxx or something worse that 

we haven’t seen yet? How big a problem? 

Mr. JAFFE. It is an enormous problem. The Red Cross was—and 

the Olympics got an exemption out of this program, as did, by the 

way, ICANN. When the Red Cross asked for this exemption, they 

said it was absolutely essential that they have it, because every 

time there is a natural disaster, that they have people stealing, 

pretending to be one of their affiliates; and that if they did not 

have this exemption, that that would be a very serious problem. 

That is the same problem that the Council of Better Business 

Bureaus has just discussed with you today. There was a witness 

in the Senate hearings last week from the YMCA representing a 

consortium of 38 other not-for-profits. All of them said this would 

be an extraordinarily serious danger for them, and that they did 

not feel protected, and that to have to be able to spend the kind 

of money that we are talking about to reserve their names was 

going to severely undermine their own programs. 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, I have got 11 seconds left. Let me go back 

to Ms. Alexander and then ask again about this .xxx. What was the 

purpose of that, that domain name, creating it? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much for the question. The Department was not the applicant for the domain. It is probably a 

better question to put to Mr. Pritz. 

Mr. GINGREY. OK. Mr. Pritz. 

Mr. PRITZ. The application was put in as part of the 2003 round 

of new TLDs where seven were implemented that were restricted 

to certain types of communities. Dot-xxx submitted an application 

and filled out the technical and operational and community information. The ICANN Board decided not to award XXX a TLD. 

ICANN has independent review processes, and ICANN went 

through that independent review process, and in arbitration it was 

determined that the ICANN Board didn’t follow its processes properly, and the decision was made to delegate XXX. And I would say 

based on some of the other comments here, there is significant 

safeguards in XXX for users and trademark holders that some of 

the panelists have deemed to be effective. 

Mr. GINGREY. OK. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentleman yields back his time. 

The chair recognizes the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, Dr. 

Christensen, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Pritz, three out of four of your fellow panelists are not supportive of the January rollout. Could you tell us the names of some 

groups that are supportive of the January—just a few. 

Mr. PRITZ. Right. So this consensus is built out of ICANN’s communities. So for the group that makes the policy to initiate this 

program, there is counsel with representatives from intellectual 

property, a business constituency, Internet service providers, noncommercial groups, registries and registrars. They all represent 

their constituency groups and come to the policy discussions with 

158 

their viewpoints, and they work over a period of time to develop a 

consensus. Several multinational—not several, many multinational 

corporations participated in that debate. Also there is governments 

that Ms. Alexander described that play a very key role in developing ICANN’s policy. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. OK. It still seems to me that details about 

the top-level domain expansion are still being worked out, including protections to trademark holders, as well as enforcement of various new mechanisms. You are still negotiating, for example, on the 

law enforcement recommendations. So I, too, have some concerns 

about moving forward with that January rollout while significant 

portions of the plans are still being worked out. 

Also, there are already examples of ICANN’s inability to implement internal policy. For example, ICANN is currently in arbitration with Mr. Embrescia’s organization, Employ Media. The arbitration in the job space has been stalled because of ICANN’s inability to meet arbitration deadlines. So how will ICANN ensure that 

these mistakes and delays won’t happen in the gTLD expansion? 

Mr. PRITZ. So there is a very detailed project plan to which 

ICANN is managing to ensure that the program is implemented in 

a timely, transparent and predictable manner. Evaluation panelists 

have already been retained. They are being trained. The trademark 

protection mechanisms, the details of those are very well settled as 

determined by expert groups that are determining them. And the 

implementation of those measures, such as the trademark clearinghouse and a rapid take-down process, are well underway, according 

to a timetable. Remember, we are not going to see any new TLDs 

until 2013 at the earliest. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Do you have a plan in place to ensure that 

ICANN is adequately staffed to review applications and implement 

all parts of the gTLD program? And do you have adequate staff to 

execute the appeals process and avoid internal process breakdown? 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. We have—it is published on ICANN’s Web site, 

but we have agreements with very well-known firms, both in the 

United States and internationally, to perform the evaluations and 

also perform any necessary arbitrations. We have developed processes for independent arbitration. So if there is a dispute, it goes 

outside ICANN, it gets settled and comes back. So the process itself 

is well thought out and managed. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. And staffed? 

Mr. PRITZ. Oh, yes. And certainly staff. There is staffing plans 

for the next year not only in evaluating these applications, but also 

in increases to our compliance program, our financial staff, our 

staff that administers the contracts are all well planned. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. This question is both to you and to Ms. Alexander. To you, Mr. Pritz, what mechanisms are in place to ensure 

that ICANN’s own procedures and rules are followed? And who will 

enforce those rules when the process breaks down? 

And, Ms. Alexander, what role, if any, will NTIA or the Department of Commerce play in ensuring ICANN adequately implements 

guidelines in the procedures it has set? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Thank you very much. 

So NTIA will continue to play a very active role as it does within 

the Governmental Advisory Committee in working with colleagues 

159 

around the world to make sure that these key safeguards are actually put into place. The other safeguard that we have is the Affirmation of Commitments that was referred to earlier, I think, by 

Ms. Eshoo. It actually calls for a multistakeholder review of this 

program a year after the first TLD is in the root, similar to what 

we have done with the Accountability and Transparency Review 

Team. We will be very actively participating in that process. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. What recourse will NTIA or other stakeholders have if the gTLD program is not rolled out in a satisfactory 

fashion? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. So we believe our current safeguards in the 

process and through the GAC—we can actually ask for additional 

changes if they are needed. This will require us to work very actively and closely with stakeholders, including those at the table. 

We take very seriously the concerns people are raising and want 

to work actively with them to make sure those are taken into account and addressed going forward. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 

Stearns, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for having this hearing. 

We have had hearings like this before, and I think one of the 

concerns a lot of us have, which I could hear when I was watching 

in my office, is the amount of money as a not-for-profit that you 

folks are going to make. Do you think you will sell 500, Mr. Pritz, 

1,000 new addresses? How many do you think you will sell? 

Mr. PRITZ. Sir, we are not selling them, but we are providing 

them and have the zero-cost fee. So the latest testaments are that 

we hear from the outside—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Of the 185,000 cost-recovery fee, how many of 

these do you think you will get? 

Mr. PRITZ. We think—so this is hearsay. The latest estimates are 

over 500. 

Mr. STEARNS. So you could have 1,000? 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. 

Mr. STEARNS. So you think 2,000 is a fair estimate? 

Mr. PRITZ. I don’t think so. I think it is much less than that. 

Mr. STEARNS. If you do 500, it is roughly $92-million-500. 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes, I know exactly—— 

Mr. STEARNS. So if it is 1,000, then you will have $185 million. 

If you do 2,000, you will have $360 million. Is all of this money 

going into a surplus, or where is it going? 

Mr. PRITZ. Sir, if there is—ICANN is a not-for-profit, and if there 

is a surplus at the end—— 

Mr. STEARNS. There should be a surplus at—— 

Mr. PRITZ [continuing]. It will be identified and segregated and 

put into a fund to help applicants in future rounds. 

Mr. STEARNS. Do you have a surplus now? 

Mr. PRITZ. We have an operating reserve fund of about 9 months’ 

worth of operations. 

Mr. STEARNS. So you have no large surplus at this point? 

160 

Mr. PRITZ. No. We have a reserve fund of 9 to 12 months of operating—— 

Mr. STEARNS. And how much is that? 

Mr. PRITZ. It is $50 million. 

Mr. STEARNS. Fifty million? 

Mr. PRITZ. It is about that. I would have to consult with our CEO 

what it is exactly. 

Mr. STEARNS. So it appears you have $50 million in surplus right now, and you are adding anywhere from $100 million to $200 million. It seems you will be overly supplied in your surplus. Wouldn’t 

you think that? In other words, if $50 million takes you to 9 

months, then if you add another $200 million, that is going to take 

you to 3 1⁄2-plus years—you will be over 4 years surplus. Do you 

think you need that much? 

Mr. PRITZ. No. And I don’t think that—there is not intended to 

be an increase in the reserve fund based on the new gTLD, the program where the costs and fees received are segregated and handled 

separately. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think what you judge here—we just think 

you are charging too much money. Is it possible when you do these 

cost-recovery fees that you could stipulate in the contract—and you 

are trying to prevent Internet squatters. Couldn’t you say that if 

the person doesn’t do something with it in a certain amount of 

time, they will forfeit, and that way you wouldn’t have to charge 

so much money? If the reason you are charging so much money is 

to discourage people that are just going to sit on the domain, why 

couldn’t you stipulate in a contract, like they do in a franchise for 

Burger King and McDonald’s, you have got to do X, Y, Z to your 

property; if you don’t do it, you lose your franchise? Couldn’t you 

do something like that and then drop the fee? 

Mr. PRITZ. So—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Just yes or no. 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. We are intending to encourage applicants to 

bring new businesses and innovation. This is all about bringing innovation—— 

Mr. STEARNS. I mean, to bring the cost down, couldn’t you stipulate in language that they have to do something in a certain 

amount of time, and that way you prevent squatters? 

Mr. PRITZ. We do that. We have new protections that are built 

into the program, that are built into the new agreement that new 

registries have to comply with to combat squatters. So it is really 

a separate issue than the fee, which is really targeted at evaluating 

the applications. And think about—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Pritz, how much do you make a year? What 

is your salary? 

Mr. PRITZ. Well, I was making $248,000 a year, and I got two 

15 percent raises in the last several years. 

Mr. STEARNS. How much total salary today? 

Mr. PRITZ. Including bonuses, about $395,000. 

Mr. STEARNS. You are making $400,000 a year. And what is the 

CEO making? 

Mr. PRITZ. I am not sure. 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think it is public knowledge. So you must 

know. What is it? 

161 

Mr. PRITZ. I think it is over $800,000. 

Mr. STEARNS. Because when we testified—I was chairing a committee, and we had this testimony—anyway, it was up about that 

2 or 3 years ago. Does that include all the fringe benefits, this 

$850,000 he makes? 

Mr. PRITZ. I am not sure. I am sure that it is competitive with 

other similarly situated CEOs, because ICANN strives to have—— 

Mr. STEARNS. Well, I think in light of the fact that the salaries 

are pretty generous, it seems, and you are going to potentially have 

$200 million added to your surplus with your $50 million, you will 

have reserves for 3–1/2, 4 years of operating, I think you folks 

should take to advice here and not charge so much here. 

Mr. PRITZ. And I wish we could. And we will look at the actual 

costs after the first round. But we have made a very good-faith attempt to identify the costs with great specificity, and our prediction 

is that is what it is going to cost. And we think we are right in 

the middle. It could be—the actual costs could be greater, or it 

could be less. If it is less, that money is going to go back to the 

Internet community in some form. It is not going to go into salaries, and it is not going to go into the ICANN reserve fund. 

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman from Florida, and I recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, for 5. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I believe that ICANN’s proposed changes need to be closely scrutinized. And I thank the gentleman from Oregon for holding this 

important hearing this morning. 

My concerns with ICANN’s proposal to expand the amount of generic top-level domains or the words to the right of the dot in a 

Web site address are twofold. One, I am concerned that ICANN has 

not sufficiently proven that any problem exists. Is there a shortage 

of Web site addresses? Why does this change have to occur right 

now? 

Two, I am also concerned that ICANN’s proposal could burden 

both consumers and businesses. For example, the proliferation of 

gTLDs could hurt consumers by increasing the risk of fraud. A consumer may have problems distinguishing a legitimate Web site 

from a fake one. As a result, a consumer may disclose her personal 

or her financial information to an imposter posing as a legitimate 

business. 

Before making a sweeping change to the Internet, we must ask 

who really stands to benefit from the change. Any proposal that 

would fundamentally alter the Internet must first ensure that consumers and businesses alike are protected. 

Mr. Jaffe, if this proposal were implemented, and analysis then 

demonstrates that the costs of the new gTLD program exceed the 

benefits, isn’t it true that the damage from the new gTLDs would 

already have taken place, and that there is no provision to undo 

these decisions once the damage has been done? 

Mr. JAFFE. That is absolutely correct. And this is why we think 

it is particularly premature to do this kind of a rollout. Just last 

week there was a letter written to the Department of Commerce 

by Robert Hall, who is the Robert and Carole McNeil joint professor of economics at Stanford University, the senior fellow at 

162 

Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He served as president of the American Economic Association for the year 2010. Speaking about the 

cost-benefit issues, he said, our analysis today shows that an unlimited expansion of gTLDs would not add anything material to the 

product variety facing Internet users. It would merely create a costly nuisance for those users. ICANN is sponsoring a perversion of 

the economic analysis that a commission—by even suggesting that 

this nuisance has net benefits for the Internet community. We 

therefore urge you to take action to block the unlimited expansion 

of gTLDs unless it is satisfactorily and transparently demonstrated 

that any such expansion or a limited expansion on a case-by-case 

basis would be in the public—— 

Mr. MARKEY. What would the impact be on ICANN’s credibility 

with the public and with governments? 

Mr. JAFFE. Well, we think there is going to be an enormous—despite what has been said at this hearing, an enormous further proliferation of cybersquatting, phishing because they have not been 

able to control the 22 top-level domains. And so why do you think 

that they can control 300, 500, 1,000 more domains? 

And understand something that is very important to understand 

in this process. The top-level domains, which will be going up enormously, proliferate everything to the left side of the dot, the secondary domains. Right now with 22 top-level domains, there is 

more than 100 million secondary domains. Just think what will 

happen here. In the XXX area, almost every college and university 

in this country felt it was necessary, to protect their good name, 

to buy a name on the XXX area. 

Mr. MARKEY. Let me ask Mr. Bourne a quick question if I may. 

In your testimony, you emphasize that ICANN should change its 

proposal to make it less harmful to consumers. As you know, the 

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz has called 

ICANN’s proposal, quote, ‘‘a disaster for consumers.’’ In your view, 

what risks does the current ICANN proposal pose to consumers? 

Mr. BOURNE. Thank you for your question, Congressman. My estimate today is that maybe there will be 800 applications, right, for 

new gTLDs. Probably two-thirds to three-quarters are coming from 

brands. So that number is artificially high because brand owners 

are unsure when this could be available to them again. So ICANN 

in a way has created a condition of scarcity there. So by illuminating when the next round could be, maybe fewer applicants 

will apply. Right? So lowering the stack, reducing it. 

Furthermore, this point about cybersquatting, consumer harm, it 

is bad out there today, right? The existing space is a mess. Will the 

new space be worse? Maybe. It will be bigger, that is for sure. 

There are things that we can do, that ICANN can do, that all the 

different stakeholders in this can do to affect cybercrime, and the 

most important thing to do is to establish a deterrent. These people 

are undeterred. The 1999 ACPA has basically done nothing. 

Cybersquatting has increased dramatically since it was introduced. 

So that is something that we can do to fix this space. And God forbid this space gets much bigger, it will affect that space positively 

as well. 

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I think 

this is a very important hearing. Thank you. 

163 

Mr. WALDEN. We do as well. Thank you for your participation 

and your questions. 

We will now go to Mr. Shimkus from Illinois for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the panel 

being here today. 

I would like to first turn to Mr. Bourne. And you suggested that 

a second round of general top-level domain applications would alleviate some of the concerns with the problems. And I would like 

to put it in this perspective, if I understand the testimony. We deal 

a lot with spectrum here, and if you know spectrum, it is really a 

finite entity. We know what has been sold. We know what has been 

auctioned. We know what is available. It does provide some certainty to people who are then going to eventually get into the market and bid for a slice of it because they know what is out there. 

The concern with what ICANN is doing is we may not know 

what the top and the level is of what is out there, and I think your 

testimony tried to address that. Am I right? 

Mr. BOURNE. It did. It did. I talk to hundreds of businesses and 

have talked to hundreds of global enterprises since this policy was 

initiated back in June. We even hosted an event in New York City 

called ‘‘What is At Stake: The Reality of the New GTLD Program 

for Brands.’’ Eighty-five participants were there discussing the way 

they felt about this policy. And there was a great deal of anxiety. 

In fact, I would say that 80, 90 percent of the companies I know 

who are applying for a gTLD are doing so mainly to gain rights to 

an option of hypothetical future value mainly because they don’t 

know if they will have another shot at it. 

So coming out of this event on November 1st where the founding 

chairman of ICANN, Ms. Esther Dyson, was our keynote speaker, 

we sent a letter to ICANN asking them just to shine some light. 

And the answer could be in 3 years, it could be in 4 years, it could 

be in 5 years. Whatever it is right now, we don’t know if there will 

ever be another program. 

So I mentioned this to Congressman Markey. I will say it again. 

Intentionally or unintentionally, ICANN has created a condition of 

scarcity around these gTLDs, and that should be alleviated before 

this moves forward so that companies can make a realistic decision 

if this thing proceeds: Can I afford to wait this out? Do I want to 

sideline, or do I want to be a pioneer? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Ms. Hansen, I saw you kind of agree. Do you want 

to weigh in on this? 

Ms. HANSEN. Yes, definitely. I think your points are very good. 

And we also considered whether or not we should get a .bbb. I 

think everyone has been undergoing that analysis. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And that would be just to protect your brand 

name, not knowing what future offers, if ever, will be on the table? 

Ms. HANSEN. Exactly. We don’t want somebody else to get that, 

because our brand is so well-known, and it has been used and 

abused relentlessly already on the Internet. We would rather have 

it and not let it get in the hands of someone else. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Pritz, how do you respond to these two concerns? 

Mr. PRITZ. Well, that we take the concerns very seriously. There 

is over 50 trademarks that are registered for BBB. And so what is 

164 

required to be put in place is a set of rules that protect each of 

those trademark holders to allow them to object if anybody were 

to attempt to register BBB that would infringe their interests. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Let us segue right into that. This whole debate on 

string confusion, I mean, I am kind of now moving, but I do have 

you. How do you keep proprietary trademark data when someone 

could, in the purchasing of a gTLD, marry together a name that 

could break copyright identification? Why does ICANN permit this 

as an objection to the TLD, yet still allow a registry to reserve domain names for auction that are confusingly similar or identical to 

trademarks; in other words, take a Google and then place in an additional G? Why do you let them reserve that? 

Mr. PRITZ. Each registry develops its own rules. So if somebody 

applies for a trademark name, that trademark holder can object to 

that application for a new gTLD. At the second level, there is a set 

of protections that have been put in place by trademark experts to 

allow trademark owners to have first dibs at buying a name; to put 

a registrant on notice that they are registering a trademark name; 

or, if they are abusing a trademark after the fact, take it down in 

a rapid, inexpensive way. So the protections for trademark holders 

are based on existing protections. We don’t make stuff up. And 

then—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. My time has expired. I think we are raising some 

great questions of concern. And since my time has expired, I am 

just going to throw this out. No one needs to answer. Law enforcement has concerns on the WHOIS type of information. Obviously 

we don’t want criminal elements that now have activity—I am not 

sure what legislative action we can do in the oversight hearing. 

This hearing is very, very important. Mr. Chairman, I would request that we continue our discussions on this and what we may 

or may not be able to do. And I yield back my time. 

Mr. WALDEN. I appreciate that. And we will continue the discussions. 

Let us go now to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. No thanks. 

Mr. WALDEN. He does not have questions. 

Mr. Scalise from Louisiana, you are on for 5. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing. 

There are a lot of questions as we look at this, and I guess I will 

start with Mr. Pritz. You all are rolling this out starting in January. So you have a 3-month period where you would take applications for various top-level domain names. And then at that point 

do you have a process, a timeline, for when you will start authorizing it at some point? You have got 50 applicants or whatever the 

number is going to be. When do you actually start issuing those 

TLDs? 

Mr. PRITZ. The evaluation process and then the ensuing negotiations are expected to take place over about 9 months. So the first 

TLDs, the first new registries would be operational in early 2013. 

Mr. SCALISE. OK. Was there any consideration of doing some 

kind of pilot program first? Since this is a kind of new area, a lot 

of questions, whether it is companies that are concerned about 

165 

copyright issues or just the complications that already exist with 

existing TLDs just get carried over and then maybe exponentially 

expanded. Was there the thought of doing that before, just kind of 

opening it wide up? 

Mr. PRITZ. Yes. We conducted two pilot programs in the past, one 

in 2000 and one in 2004. 

Mr. SCALISE. With what? 

Mr. PRITZ. In the 2000 round, new TLDs such as .business and 

.info and .museum were introduced. In 2004, we had—that round, 

we had the introduction of .jobs, Mr. Embrescia’s TLD, .UPU, for 

the university—— 

Mr. SCALISE. Were there any things learned from previous problems? Because, I mean, some of the same problems we heard today 

we heard back in 2000. Were any of those problems worked out if 

this was a so-called pilot program? 

Mr. PRITZ. Right. Plenty of problems were identified and addressed in this program. One had to do with how to limit the 

round. And so this isn’t ICANN, me talking, this is—the greater 

Internet community discussed this issue in great depth and decided 

not to limit the round by type of TLD or numbers of TLD where 

ICANN would determine winners and losers in the program and 

put itself in the same position where this committee was fairly critical of it in 2001, but rather to limit the program first by an open 

and closed application window, and then by setting a high bar to 

determine only those who implement protections and have the 

wherewithal to operate a registry in a responsible way and can be 

monitored. 

Mr. SCALISE. I am going to jump in. Mr. Jaffe, I saw you kind 

of shaking your head. I don’t know if you wanted to comment 

on—— 

Mr. JAFFE. I would, because what certainly has not happened— 

and we have heard in this hearing several times that they have put 

in a whole series of new types of protections because they felt that 

the existing protections were inadequate. They have certainly not 

tested that out. And I would like to show you how—if you would 

be willing to allow me to put a couple more posters up just to 

see—— 

Mr. SCALISE. If we can do it in about 40 seconds or so. 

Mr. JAFFE. Put up the poster for the subcommittee members who 

have sites. I will try and do this very quickly. And we could obviously have—and this was certainly true for Senators. It is also true 

for the President of the United States. If you could then put up the 

posterboard for the chick.xxx. This is just one site. You hear about 

some of these numbers I have been talking about. Here they are 

talking about selling this for $5 million. The numbers that we were 

talking about are actually low. 

If you could put up the security warnings for the 

FederalTradeCommission.org. 

What happens here is that if you come to thinking that you are 

going to the Federal Trade Commission, you will be spammed, and 

that this—it looks like it is a safe site, but it, in fact, would allow 

you to have your keystrokes taken. 

166 

So there is a tremendous danger already. Why would we think 

that with these dangers that are already out there, why would we 

do 1,000 more? 

Mr. SCALISE. I have time limitations because these are some of 

the problems that I was referring to that have been around well 

before 2000. I know when we dealt with this when I was in the 

State legislature, the issue of cybersquatting on, for example, high 

school athletes or even a college athlete, by the time you are maybe 

a senior in high school, if you are a blue-chip recruit, somebody 

bought your name, they took it, it is gone. So if you are fortunate 

enough to make it into the NFL or the NBA or Major League Baseball, somebody else owned your name. I don’t even think that problem has been resolved. 

So the final two questions as my time is expiring are, number 

one, Mr. Pritz, how are you all already dealing with that serious 

problem? And then what happens, then, if you somehow create an 

authorized .athlete, for example, and then somebody goes out and 

now all of those athletes are—somebody is going to buy their name 

and squat on their name? Do you have any mechanism—if a name 

is—a new top-level domain name is issued, and then you find problems with it, is there a method you have in place to pull that back 

in your plan that you have already drawn up? So if you could answer those two questions. 

Mr. PRITZ. One reason for that problem today is scarcity, that all 

of the .com names are gone, every English word is registered there. 

How do we address the needs of—there is 2 billion Internet users. 

How do we address the needs of the next billion—— 

Mr. SCALISE. No, no. If there is a John Smith, and if another 

John Smith gets it, first come, first serve. But if Bob Dole goes and 

gets John Smith’s name because he wants to take advantage of 

that person, that still exists today. I haven’t seen you all come up 

with any mechanism to resolve those blatant disputes, and there 

are too many examples of them. 

Mr. PRITZ. That is right. And the new TLDs have to comply with 

a set of protections that will exist for them that don’t exist now. 

So if your rights are being infringed, you can register a complaint, 

you can register an objection to have that name taken down in a 

rapid style. But think about the architecture of the domain name 

system and the ability to make those registrations more diverse so 

it is not so important to have a registration in that TLD. 

Mr. SCALISE. Is there a mechanism to pull one back if you do find 

there are real problems as you issue a new TLD? 

Mr. PRITZ. Yep. There is mechanisms against TLD owners called 

the post-delegation dispute resolution process where claims can be 

made to take TLDs down. And there is dispute resolution procedures on second-level names, too, where if a name is registered 

that is infringing your rights, you can take it down in a rapid, 

cheap style. 

Mr. SCALISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman for his questions and the 

panel for their answers. We have a letter from the National Restaurant Association that we will enter into the record. Without objection. 

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Mr. WALDEN. The ranking member and I wondered, Mr. Jaffe, if 

only esteemed Members, if there—this just being we covered ourselves better than our colleagues. 

Mr. JAFFE. It is open to all comers. 

Mr. WALDEN. Hopefully we are protected. 

Ms. ESHOO. Esteemed and—— 

Mr. WALDEN. Then I am going to recognize the gentlelady from 

California for another letter and comment. 

Ms. ESHOO. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to place 

into the record a letter that was received yesterday to ICANN, the 

United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and 26 other 

international organizations, which raise concerns about 

cybersquatting under ICANN’s planned expansion of top-level domain names. 

Mr. WALDEN. Without objection, it will be entered into the 

record. 

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Mr. WALDEN. I want to thank all of our participants today for 

your testimony, your work, and your comments and your counsel. 

We will continue to pursue this issue in the weeks and months 

ahead and review the cybersquatting legislation, I think, as well 

and other issues attendant to this. So thank you for your participation. 

This subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:54 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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