US moves to keep control of net names

Members of the US House of Representatives said this week the US should resist international pressure to give up authority over key internet functions amid a mounting feud over the issue.

In a letter to Commerce and State Department officials, the lawmakers said the Bush administration should retain strong oversight over the internet domain name system, specifically the root servers that guide traffic to huge databases containing addresses for all the top-level domains, such as dot-com, dot-edu, and the country code domains such as dot-uk and dot-jp.

The letter said: "Given the internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying domain name system of the internet remain stable and secure.

"As such, the United States should take no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the domain name system. Therefore, the United States should maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file."

The letter was signed by two Republicans and two Democrats, including Joe Barton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Fred Upton, chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

They addressed the letter to David Gross, US co-ordinator for international communication and information policy at the State Department, and Michael Gallagher, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

The European Union and other nations are demanding that the US share responsibility for the domain name system, including decisions over adding and deleting new top-level domains, with the United Nations. The Bush administration has so far resisted them. Officials on both sides are set to meet about the issue next month at a UN-sponsored summit in Tunisia.

Alorie Gilbert writes for CNET News.com