ICANN Rejects .XXX - Again

Just got this on my news alerts from Wall St Journal..

The board of the Internet body that governs Internet domain names and other technical matters rejected on Wednesday evening a controversial proposal to create a domain name for the adult entertainment industry, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company behind the idea, called ICM Registry Inc., had proposed the new domain name suffix, dot-xxx, as a way to protect children from online pornography by making it easier to filter adult content. The company also figured to make millions of dollars from fees generated from Web sites registering under the domain suffix.

The matter exploded into a global debate over whether such a domain name suffix would address concerns about online pornography, and beyond that, over the role of the U.S. government in managing the Internet.

The Internet body that makes decisions about the domain name system, called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, operates under a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Last August, the department wrote to the Icann board about emails and letters it had received opposing the idea, expressing concerns about the effect of pornography on children and family.

The move attracted the ire of other countries that saw it as evidence of the U.S.'s influence over the Internet. The European Union, South Africa and Iran, among other countries, have argued that the Internet is a global resource and no one country should have more control over it than others.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1147..._whats_news_us

Im ot seeing anything on the ICANN website though and the WSJ has been known to be wrong before, anyone else got any further info on this?

Regards,

Lee

It is in fact a correct news article..

Quote:

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Marina del Rey, California, 10 May 2006: Today, ICANN's Board of Directors voted against a proposed agreement for a .XXX. Sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD). The application was proposed by the ICM Registry.

The application has received much public comment and detailed discussion by the ICANN Board. Reflecting the diversity of views this application has generated, the Board discussion at today's meeting focused on the criteria for the sTLD, especially for sponsorship, and the terms of the contract proposed by ICM, including compliance issues related to key terms associated with public policy concerns. ICM had proposed additional terms in response to issues raised by ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, particularly at ICANN's meeting in Wellington in March. http:// http://www.icann.org/announcements/a...t1-18apr06.htm

ICM had requested that the ICANN Board vote on the proposed contract at this meeting.

ICANN's Board voted 9 to 5 against the proposed agreement. Votes in favor of the proposed .XXX Registry Agreement were cast by the following Board Members: Veni Markovski, Susan Crawford, Peter Dengate Thrush, Joichi Ito, and Mouhamet Diop. Directors who voted against the approval were Vint Cerf (Chairman), Alejandro Pisanty (Vice-Chairman), Raimundo Beca, Demi Getschko, Hagen Hultzsch, Njeri Rionge, Vanda Scartezini, Paul Twomey (President and CEO), and Hualin Qian. Additional details regarding the vote will be provided by ICANN later this week.

About ICANN

ICANN is an internationally organised, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. As a private-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

All media inquiries to press@icann.org or call:

Asia Pacific: Tony Blackie +61 417 743 142

Europe: Andrew Robertson: +44 7921 588770

Americas: Tanzanica King: +1 310 301 5804

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Taken from the ICANN website at http://www.icann.org/announcements/a...nt-10may06.htm

It will be interesting to see if in any of the additional information made available later this week if any of the emails they received get specific attention.

I did notice that the FSC and ASACP, who im told did in fact send feedback in, never got published on the forum.

Regards,

Lee

You can bet that ICM, which has a ton of money invested in .xxx already, will do everything possible to resurrect it from the dead, but let's hope that it's shot down at least for a few years.