Testimony Before U.S. House Judiciary Subcomittee on Need for Accountability Reform Before ICANN Transition

The House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet invited ITIF to provide a statement for the record in its hearing on Internet governance. In the statement, ITIF argues that the U.S. government’s decision to relinquish oversight of key technical Internet functions creates risk to the stability of Internet governance, ICANN has repeatedly shown it lacks the capacity to operate without oversight, and ICANN needs strong and binding accountability and transparency mechanisms to become trustworthy. For these reasons, the U.S. government should insist that ICANN implement all of the accountability reforms proposed by the global Internet community before the transition is complete.