The successor to White House internet policy advisor Ira Magaziner, who plans to retire by the end of the year, has been named as Elliot Maxwell. His appointment has been met with almost unanimous enthusiasm from those involved in the current political wrangles over the internet’s infrastructure. Maxwell is a lawyer at the Department of Commerce and was at the Federal Communications Commission before that. Magaziner announced earlier this month that he was stepping down due to a long commute from Rhode Island and the fact that he has been in the job for six years, much longer than most White House advisors (11/10/98). However, unlike Magaziner, who was located in the White House and had the ear of the President and Vice President, Maxwell will serve as a special advisor to Commerce secretary William Daley. At the FCC, Maxwell was deputy director of the Office of Plans and Policies (OPP). Maxwell’s positioning at the DoC highlights that department’s position as the lead government agency on internet issues. In September it took over control of the contracts between the companies and organization that control such things as the domain name registry for .com, .net and .org and the control of the root server from the National Science Foundation (NSF). And with Magaziner stepping down, the DoC’s position at the central internet policy unit within the US government is complete. Maxwell was unavailable for comment yesterday.
