By Robert Romano With all of the focus on Obama’s executive amnesty of 4.5 million illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children , and House Republicans’ decision to separate funding for agencies that spend money implementing the executive action into a shorter-term continuing resolution — very few are focused on the remainder of the budget. Which may be good news […]

By Robert Romano On March 14, the U.S. Department Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it intends to relinquish control over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the domain name system (DNS) to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) without any vote in Congress. For almost 20 years, the Internet has […]

By Robert Romano If the federal government is fully funded through fiscal year 2015 which ends on September 30, 2015, you can pretty much kiss Commerce Department oversight of the Internet governance goodbye. Why? Transferring control over the Internet’s domain name system and assigned numbers functions from […]

By Robert Romano “There have been lots of times that it has been abused, so now the Magna Carta is about saying… I want a web where I’m not spied on, where there’s no censorship.” That was Internet innovator Tim Berners-Lee — the British inventor responsible for […]

By Robert Romano The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit government contractor currently responsible for administering the Internet’s critical domain name system, has proposed a new change to its bylaws that would empower foreign governments in a way that not seen in the world wide web’s short life. Currently, […]

By Robert Romano Thanks to the efforts of Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), on May 30 the House of Representatives defunded the Obama Internet giveaway in the FY 2015 Commerce Department appropriations bill by a 229 to 178 vote . However, with the August recess already in full swing, the Senate appears unlikely to […]

By Robert Romano By allowing its current contract with the Commerce Department to expire in September 2015, conferring a global monopoly on itself as the sole administrator of the domain name system (DNS), the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) may be painting itself with an antitrust bull’s eye. Why? Once the […]

By Robert Romano Think OPEC, but for the Internet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a global monopoly on domain names worldwide, and is currently a $300 million a year in revenue operation. Right now, its domain name fees are defined and limited […]

By Nathan Mehrens Adapted from a June 30 letter to the U.S. Senate. In an April 2, 2014 letter to Assistant Secretary of Commerce Larry Strickling , head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), 35 Senate Republicans including Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sought “clarification regarding the recent announcement that NTIA intends to relinquish responsibility of […]

By Robert Romano On May 30, in an amendment offered by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) to the Department of Commerce appropriations bill, the House of Representatives by a 229 to 178 vote denied funding to the Obama administration to transition control over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and the domain name system (DNS) to an as of yet unnamed international body. That was the first assertion of […]