ICANN and the Data Quality Act: A Multi-Part Series
Part 1 - The History of the Data Quality Act
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) has determined that ICANN is subject to the Data Quality Act. Specifically, because ICANN carries out the technical management of the internet, including the IANA function and the implementation of new top level domains, under agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN's information disseminations are "sponsored" by the Department and thus subject to the Act.

ICANNfocus is publishing a multi-part series of articles to explain the Data Quality Act and why it is important to ICANN and to diverse internet stakeholders in the United States and overseas. This first article provides a brief history of the Act as well as links to extensive information about the Act and its implementation.

The Data Quality Act was contained in Section 515 of Public Law 106-554, the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The bill was signed into law by President Clinton on December 21, 2000. CRE played a key role in securing passage of the Data Quality Act in order to ensure that: 1) information disseminated and sponsored by federal agencies meets standards for quality, objectivity, utility and integrity; and 2) the public has meaningful recourse for seeking and obtaining correction of information not meeting quality standards. The growth of the internet was a key factor spurring CRE's work on the Data Quality Act. The importance of the Data Quality Act to government and government-sponsored information disseminated via the internet has already been recognized by the academic community.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has overall responsibility for overseeing the federal government's implementation of the Act. OMB issued final government-wide Data Quality guidelines following a public notice and comment process. Federal agencies have issued their own agency-specific Data Quality guidelines compliant with both the law and OMB's government-wide guidelines, following public notice and comment. The guidelines became effective on October 1, 2002. In addition to applying to federal agencies and to organizations disseminating federally-sponsored information, the guidelines also apply to third-party information provided to the government or government-sponsored entities, if the data is to be cited or otherwise disseminated by the government/government-sponsored entity.

Although a relative recent law, the Data Quality Act has been the subject of scholarly legal analyses, meetings and workshops by the National Academy of Sciences, panel discussions by the American Bar Association, and numerous articles in the trade and popular press. The provision of the Act allowing the affected public to seek and obtain correction of information not meeting federal data quality standards has been invoked by diverse stakeholders ranging from U.S. Senators, law firms and the CRE. The Data Quality Act can also be applied to international organizations.

Additional articles in this series will discuss why the Data Quality Act is important to ICANN and to diverse domestic and international internet stakeholders, the Data Quality Act's information correction process; and provide specific examples of ICANN-disseminated information subject to the Data Quality Act.