WASHINGTON, December 22, 2009–The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) enthusiastically supports President Obama’s selection of Mr. Howard A. Schmidt for Chief of Cybersecurity. Mr. Schmidt, who served as vice chairman of President George W. Bush’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board and chief security officer at Microsoft, brings both public and private sector experience to his new position with the Obama administration. He is highly qualified and should be a tremendous asset to White House cybersecurity efforts.

“CADNA looks forward to working with Mr. Schmidt towards our mutual goal of creating a thriving, safe and more stable Internet for the entire online community,” said Josh Bourne, President of CADNA. “Having served as the chief information security officer at eBay and chief security officer at Microsoft, Mr. Schmidt has seen firsthand how current vulnerabilities of the Internet have a negative impact on businesses and consumers. He knows how critical ICANN is to making the Internet safe and secure.”

As the regulatory body of the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) continues to be the source of policies that create these online vulnerabilities and, as a result, is an important focus for cybersecurity. CADNA urges the administration to closely re-examine ICANN’s structure, governance, oversight mechanisms, and plans for introducing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). CADNA also urges the administration to establish a federal commission comprised of businesses, governments, academics, and other experts to conduct an audit of the organization. With the recommendations of this federal commission, ICANN can become a more responsible and effective regulator.

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the systemic domain name abuses that plague the Internet today. For more information, please visit www.cadna.org.