The European Commission will today discuss its initial response to the US green paper on internet domain name management, published at the end of January. The Commission’s telecommunications council will meet and discuss a draft proposal which criticizes the paper for being too US-centric. The US Green paper proposals appear not to recognize the need to implement an international approach. The current US proposals could consolidate permanent US jurisdiction over the internet as a whole, says the draft. The part that probably worries the Europeans the most is the make up of the body that replaces and extends the responsibilities of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The paper calls for IANA’s functions to be passed to a non-profit corporation, complete with a CEO and board of directors. However, the only direct guaranteed European involvement on that will be that of the European IP numbering authority, Reseaux IP Europeens (RIPE). France Telecom SA chose yesterday to set out its stall. It too criticizes the green paper’s perceived US-centrism. The company is firmly behind the proposal put forward by the Council of Registrars (CORE), which is understandable as it has signed to become one of the registrars of the seven new top-level domain names (TLDs) proposed by CORE. The green paper calls for only five new names and for a commercial registry looking after the registrars for each name. CORE wants one not-for-profit registry and registrars competing across all the names, however many there are.
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