The top two Republicans on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee recently sent a letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom to express their concern about several issues regarding the organization, including its plans to introduce a number of new top-level domains (TLDs). In their letter, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) said that ICANN’s plans to introduce new TLDs would have negative consequences for both consumers and businesses. Smith and Coble noted that since ICANN’s plan does not contain price caps, legitimate businesses could be discriminated against and asked to pay a premium for each domain they register or renew. The lawmakers also said that ICANN has made no economic justification for its plan, except for a report that has been criticized for not including empirical data that supports its claim that the introduction of new TLDs would benefit consumers. Smith and Coble also said they were worried about the expiration of the joint project agreement (JPA) that formally establishes a relationship between the U.S. Commerce Department and ICANN later this month. ICANN has said the JPA should be allowed to expire because it is ready to be an independent organization, though some U.S. lawmakers say the organization should be permanently tied to the Commerce Department. However, others say that new TLDs will be good for consumers and will not increase the amount of cybersquatting or Internet traffic. “There is only so much Internet traffic and so many cybersquatter dollars available at any given point in time,” says eNom’s Richard Tindal.
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