Pritzker Restates US Position To Keep Domain Name Process Out of Government Hands
The federal government will let neither China nor any other government take charge of the domain name process, said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker Thursday, restating a long-held U.S. position that a multistakeholder apparatus should govern the process. She responded to…
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questions from Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., during a FY 2017 budget hearing before Senate Appropriations's Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee. With ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé leaving to become co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (see 1602240035), Lankford asked Pritzker what China's role could be. "What he’s choosing to do afterwards is his business," she replied. "Our concern is to make sure that, whether it’s China or any other government, because there are other governments that would like to take over the domain name process and we’re not going to allow that. That is not the objective here. The objective is to keep it in the multistakeholder domain." Lankford, echoing concerns of other lawmakers about China's role, said "it's very, very important" to keep the Internet "open, free and not limited. But when you’re dealing with China in the way this has been dealt with in so many places, it raises red flags to me on that.”