On June 13, 2001 the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) regarding the management and administration of the .us namespace. This is one of the nearly 250 ccTLDs (country code top-level domains), which, since 1994, have been recognized as public resources for the countries to which they are assigned. The domain is currently overseen by Network Solutions -- subsidiary of Internet registrar VeriSign and the exclusive operator for the .com, .net, and .org domain name registries until 2007-- under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Beginning in 1997, the Commerce Department undertook a review of options for improving the operation of the .us domain space. Because it was largely created to give municipal government, schools, and libraries a means to be easily identified online in a less-generic manner than .org or .com domains, it entailed a non-commercial identity. This made it less attractive to the growing number of .com registrars, and therefore less of a priority in the grand scheme of Internet governance. The Commerce Department decided to issue a notice of inquiry (NOI) in August 2000 to gather input on what should be done with the namespace. The comments period ran less than two months, offering only a short time window for public comments and input, especially from current registrants and public stakeholders, and with limited outreach or education by NTIA as to the impact of the domain transfer. In an October 2, 2000 set of joint comments endorsed by 19 organizations, the Media Access Project and the Benton Foundation proposed a set of principles regarding the management of .us, stating that it should be considered a resource created with public funds, supportive of commercial and non-commercial development of the space, to be used to promote public discourse and democratic principles, with the revenue it derives to be applied toward addressing the digital divide. As a follow-up to the NOI, an expanded roster of that coalition asked NTIA on February 1, to explore the possibility of .us management by a public interest or nonprofit entity, a proposal rejected by the agency on May 30. The next day, the agency issued notice of intent stating that it would propose a request for quotes (RFQ) regarding administration and maintenance of the .us space. The formal RFQ was issued on June 11, quickly raising concerns among a range of public interest advocates. In addition to not including any language guaranteeing the principles sought by the coalition, the RFQ suggests a bias towards developing the .us as yet another commercial domain opportunity. In addition to notifying bidders that commercial trademark holders have first pick of the best domain names, the RFQ essentially would allow the successful bidder to not only impose fees on existing registrants for what has been a free process, but also requires the bidders to agree to bring .us maintenance into accordance with procedures outlined under the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) -- the international body that maintains domain name policies for the Internet. ICANN, for example, requires disputes between name holders to be subject to arbitration. Federal agencies, "may not require any person to consent to arbitration as a condition of entering into a contract or obtaining a benefit," under the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act. A further legal question arises because in moving managerial authority of .us from state government, agencies, and public interest partnerships -- and placing it into the hands of a private vendor subject to rules of an international nonprofit entity -- the federal government might, in fact, encroach upon state sovereignty, especially since the vendor has no obligation, or incentive, to be accountable to its registrants -- or the public directly. There is at least some interest in Congress in slowing down, if not halting, the RFQ process. Reps. Howard Coble (R-NC) and Howard Berman (D-CA), the chair and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, The Internet, and Intellectual Property, sent a letter on June 14 to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, asking NTIA to reconsider its RFQ process until concerns around public vulnerability around to cybercrime and fraud, protections for existing copyright and trademark holders, and the impact of revenue from the RFQ on the 2002 fiscal year budget. All of these concerns, however, obscure the consideration about the loss, or mutation, of what is now a potentially viable public resource into another commercially exploited part of the Internet. Its value rests in the ability of local governments, schools, and libraries, and public-private partnerships to establish a visible, easy-to-find space on the online, in a way that can be consistently identified and associated with public interest and public-oriented.