Increasingly alarmed by the lack of progress in transitioning the domain name system to the private sector, the House Science Committee next week will hold an informational hearing to see what progress the working group has made in the past six months. The Clinton Administration's top Internet adviser, Ira Magaziner, spent the past year trying to facilitate a plan for handing the DNS over to a private body with international representation. Magaziner said this week that he expects to resolve the outstanding issues and receive a proposal for creating the new Internet governing body.
Internet domains remains a key issue.
Some DNS stakeholders are concerned that the bylaw process was supposed to be open to all interested parties and has been going on behind closed doors. To that end, Magaziner said he may post the final proposal for public comment to eliminate concern that a majority of interests have not been represented. Postel's introduction to the draft, which was posted on the IANA Web site on Tuesday, said the fact that the draft was not jointly issued with NSI should not be misinterpreted. NSI is actively engaged in the final negotiations with the United States Government over the transition of its contractual relationship with the United States Government. That is, understandably, its highest priority at the moment.