ICANN’s Financial Health Questioned

One month after pressuring the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers to drop a plan to charge domain name registrars a user fee of up to $1 per registration, U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Bliley (R-Va.) is questioning the nonprofit group’s ability to become financially self-sufficient. In a letter last week to ICANN Interim Chairwoman Esther Dyson, Bliley said he is “troubled that an organization created for the express purpose of assuming essential management functions of the [Internet domain name system] finds itself in such a critical funding situation.” After shelving the user fee idea--which was to be its main source of funding--ICANN focused on soliciting financial support from the private sector. On Friday, the group said it received $650,000 in loans from MCI WorldCom Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.