NTIA’s spinoff of its oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions now appears likely to happen by the end of June 2016, said ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé Monday during the ICANN 53 meeting in Buenos Aires. ICANN’s IANA transition planning process, which includes work to modify the nonprofit’s accountability mechanisms, is to be the dominant topic throughout ICANN 53. Stakeholders also plan to focus during the meeting on the search for Chehadé’s successor as head of ICANN and on the future of ICANN’s generic top-level domains program. The meeting ends Thursday (see 1506190061). Chehadé said he’s basing his assessment that NTIA’s current contract with ICANN for the IANA functions may now end just over “a year from today” on feedback from ICANN community leaders on the current status of IANA transition planning.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition process and accompanying ICANN accountability proposals are set to again dominate proceedings as ICANN 53 convenes in Buenos Aires this week, but questions about the search for a successor to outgoing ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé and the future direction of the generic top-level domains rollout also loom large, stakeholders told us. Debate over the IANA transition at ICANN 53 is likely to center on how much time stakeholders believe it will take to complete the planning and finalization of ICANN’s transition proposal, stakeholders said. ICANN 53, which was to begin Sunday and will run through Thursday, is the nonprofit’s last major meeting before the current Sept. 30 expiration date of ICANN’s current contract with NTIA to administer the IANA functions.
Librarian of Congress James Billington’s planned Jan. 1 departure as head of the LOC re-highlights the need for the LOC to fix ongoing IT issues amid the current debate about the U.S. Copyright Office’s future, copyright stakeholders told us in interviews. Billington announced his planned departure last week (see 1506100029). The GAO criticized the LOC’s IT policies in a March report, saying the library lacks “clear direction” for its IT program and needs to “expeditiously” hire a chief information officer (see 1503310046). Copyright stakeholders have noted those IT issues as one of the main reasons for the CO to become an independent federal agency (see 1502260057 and 1502200040). The search for Billington’s successor should include some focus on finding a tech-savvy candidate, but that shouldn’t be the primary prerequisite, stakeholders told us.
The House Commerce Committee passed the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805) Wednesday, easily clearing the bill as expected (see 1506160059) on a voice vote. HR-805 and its Senate version (S-1551) would require NTIA to submit a report to Congress certifying that ICANN’s Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plan meets the U.S. goal of maintaining global Internet openness. HR-805 would give Congress 30 legislative days to review the report before NTIA can relinquish its IANA oversight role. The bill also would require NTIA to certify that ICANN has adopted proposed changes to its bylaws.
The Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805) is expected to easily pass through the House Commerce Committee Wednesday amid widening perceptions that compromise language agreed to at last week’s House Communications Subcommittee markup broke a logjam over how to create acceptable oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, industry officials said in interviews. The compromise HR-805 that House Communications approved would require NTIA to submit a report to Congress certifying that ICANN’s IANA transition plan meets the U.S. goal of maintaining global Internet openness. HR-805 would give Congress 30 legislative days to review the report before NTIA can relinquish its IANA oversight role. The bill also would require NTIA to certify that ICANN has adopted proposed changes to its bylaws (see 1506150064).
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., urged the White House to support reauthorization of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, in comments posted Friday on the Broadband Opportunity Council’s (BBOC) request for comment on broadband availability and deployment issues. A group of House Democrats led by House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a separate filing to “modernize” regulations for the Rural Utility Service’s Telecom Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee program to “better facilitate high-speed rural broadband deployment.” BBOC, which the White House created March 23 to spur broadband investment and adoption (see 1503230064), sought comment on ways the federal government can modernize “outdated regulations,” identify regulatory barriers to broadband deployment and promote broadband adoption.
The EU wants to include the private sector in work on its digital single market (DSM) strategy, but “we're not going to be lectured by the private sector on what constitutes a free flow of data within the European Union,” said Andrea Glorioso, Delegation of the EU to the U.S. counselor-digital economy/cyber. “We're not going to be fooled by claims unless those claims are substantiated by hard data.” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other backers of the EU's 16-point DSM strategy, unveiled in May (see 1505060038 and 1505070053), believe the strategy will promote e-commerce across the EU's 28 member nations by overhauling the EU's telecom rules and harmonizing members states' regulations in areas like copyright law.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., proposed attaching language from his Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act reauthorization (S-1376) Tuesday with the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We can no longer simply watch Americans’ personal information continue to be compromised,” Burr said in a statement. “This bill is long needed and will help us combat threats to our country and our economy.” McConnell separately cited the Office of Personnel Management data breach as a reason for proposing attachment of S-754’s language to the NDAA reauthorization. Senate intelligence Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, who co-sponsored S-754 with Burr, said in a statement that she declined to join Burr in offering the amendment and “it’s a mistake.” The move brought swift condemnation from S-754 critics. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement that if McConnell “insists on attaching the flawed CISA bill to unrelated legislation, I will be fighting to ensure the Senate has a full debate and a chance to offer amendments to add vital protections for American privacy and address the threats to our cybersecurity.” Monument Policy Group lobbyist Andrew Howell told us it’s feasible that the Senate could approve the S-754 amendment. An industry lobbyist said advocates of two House-passed cyber information sharing bills -- the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731) and the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) -- could move to attach language from those two bills to the NDAA reauthorization during conference. The House passed its version of NDAA reauthorization (HR-1735) May 15.
The House Communications Subcommittee easily cleared a compromise version of the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805) Wednesday. Industry stakeholders told us that likely sets up swift consideration of the bill by the full House Commerce Committee but doesn’t automatically guarantee that either the House or Senate will consider it soon. Subcommittee leaders said Monday that they had reached a deal on compromise language for HR-805 that would in part require NTIA to submit a report to Congress certifying that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plans meet the U.S. goal of maintaining global Internet openness (see 1506090067).
Prospects remain strong for the Senate to act on an extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act following House passage Tuesday of the Permanent ITFA (HR-235). Supporters of that bill told us that it’s unlikely that extension will come in the form of the stand-alone Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act (S-431), the Senate’s HR-235 equivalent. HR-235 and S-431 would make ITFA’s ban on state and local Internet access taxes and certain state taxes on e-commerce permanent (see 1501090042). The House passed HR-235 by voice vote Tuesday, just as it did in 2014 before Senate consideration of the bill was derailed by debate over the Marketplace Fairness Act. Congress passed a temporary extension of ITFA during last year’s lame-duck session (see 1412170034, 1412030052 and 1407210077).