WASHINGTON, June 15, 2011 – The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) supports the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Further Notice of Inquiry concerning the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions. CADNA also appreciates NTIA’s careful review and consideration of the comments provided in response to the previous Notice of Inquiry. Its continued engagement with the Internet community through this current FNOI demonstrates NTIA’s commitment to developing the IANA functions contract to reflect the best interest of all Internet stakeholders.

“CADNA is pleased to see its recommendations represented in NTIA’s draft statement of work regarding the IANA functions contract,” said CADNA president Josh Bourne. “Most importantly, NTIA agrees with CADNA’s suggestion that a distinction be made between the development and execution of policies related to the IANA functions; this distinction is critical to ensure that the IANA functions operator remains accountable.” The separation of policy development and execution of the IANA functions outlined in the current draft statement of work applies to staff, meaning that the personnel dedicated to executing the functions must remain separate and removed from the development of policy around the execution of those functions. CADNA looks forward to providing further comment on this topic to NTIA.

NTIA’s sensitivity to the impact that new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) will have on the Internet domain name system is evident in the FNOI. The draft statement of work includes a clause titled “Responsibility and Respect for Stakeholders” that requires delegation requests for new gTLDs to demonstrate “how the proposed string has received consensus support from relevant stakeholders and is supported by the global public interest.” Movement towards increased accountability and transparency in Internet governance is necessary, and CADNA finds NTIA’s efforts to ensure that this governance is carried out effectively encouraging.

“While this is a great step forward on the part of NTIA,” Bourne continued, “the real test will be whether the level of scrutiny it has shown at this stage in the IANA contract procurement process will continue in the coming months. The IANA functions contract must bring accountability and transparency to Internet governance. NTIA should not hesitate to use the contract as a means to scrutinize ICANN’s new gTLD policy as well, since some aspects of that policy do not reflect the global public’s interest.”

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.