The U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) oversees the current Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with ICANN and will be responsible for recommending whether that arrangement should be terminated or extended when the current JPA expires in September.
On March 26th President Obama nominated Lawrence Strickling to be Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at DOC. Strickling is a technology policy expert and worked on the President’s campaign. Prior to that he was Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer at Broadwing Communications, and his past service also includes heading up the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Competition Bureau.
Upon his Senate confirmation Strickling will oversee the work of Anna Gomez, already in place as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, NTIA. Ms. Gomez was head of regulatory affairs at Sprint Nextel and also worked at the FCC, as well as serving on the National Economic Council during the Clinton Administration and as Staff Counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee’s Communications Subcommittee.
In early March the ICA attended a meeting in Washington at which about 50 participants were able to bring their ICANN views to Ms. Gomez’s attention. Ms. Gomez readily admitted that both ICANN and the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum were markedly different from her FCC experience, and welcomed the group’s input on a wide range of issues and concerns — ranging from ICANN’s burgeoning budget, to new gTLDs, to the future of the U.S. relationship with ICANN and whether ICANN will be able to stay independent if oversight is terminated. Ms. Gomez thanked the group and promised future dialogues, but gave no hints as to what the U.S. is going to do about the JPA.
Perhaps once Mr. Strickling is in place the Administration will begin to share its policy thinking on ICANN and its future. September, after all, is just five months away.