In a proposal submitted Friday, Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson was named one of nine people who may become the sole governing body of the Internet.

If accepted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the proposal would give the board power over assigning Internet domain names, such as www.harvard.edu, to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), of which Wilson would be a member.

The House Technology Subcommittee will be holding hearings on the proposal today, and the Commerce Department is allowing 10 days for public comment before evaluating a number of private-sector proposals.

Critics have alleged the board would have too much power and that guidelines for selecting board members are inadequate.

The Commerce Department announced its intention to turn administration of domain names over to a not-for-profit corporation in June. Currently, an organization seeking a domain name ending in .com, .net, or .org must purchase the domain from Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), a for-profit corporation operating under government contract.

Yesterday, the department reached an agreement with NSI that would enable multiple businesses to offer those registration services.

If its proposal is accepted by the department, ICANN would control these businesses, recognizing official domain name providers as well as creating new endings for domain names, such as .biz or .store, to allow for more competition in Internet registration services.

ICANN would then make sure that these for-profit corporations maintained compatible systems while keeping the system competitive; In this way, NSI's control would end without compromising the system's stability.

"There're standards for telephone inter-operability, but we don't have telephone monopolies anymore," said Professor of Law Lawrence Lessig, a leading expert in Internet law.

The ICANN proposal named nine interim board members of the corporation who will be responsible for its operation until a permanent board of 19 members is elected. Wilson is one of four Americans named to the board; the others are Esther Dyson '72, author and chair of EDventure Holdings, George H. Conrades, president of GTE Internetworking and Frank Fitzsimmons, senior vice president for global marketing at Dun & Bradstreet Corp.

Wilson, whom ICANN sought out for the board, had served as vice president for research at the University of Michigan during the Internet's initial development. A former member of the National Commission on Research, Wilson also served as a charter member of the National Academy of Sciences' Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable.

"President Wilson has a distinguished history of serving on different public and private boards," said Radcliffe spokesperson Michael A. Armini. "She has an impressive track record in the national science policy arena that will make her an asset to the proposed Internet governing board," Armini said.

The ICANN was incorporated in California and be headquartered in Los Angeles. However, says Armini, most of the work will be done over the Internet, meaning that Wilson will not be called away from Cambridge often.

Board members will receive no compensation.

Critics of ICANN