Internet body rejects .XXX adult-only sites [ICANN]
The U.S.-based Internet governing body rejected a proposal on Friday to create an adults-only zone on the internet, or a .XXX domain.
Supporters of an .XXX domain argued it would make it easier to confine sex sites and filter them out. Opponents argued it would make pornography on the Internet easier to find.
The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the Internet’s domain-name address system, decided to reject the application for .XXX sites at a meeting in Portugal.
“This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments,” Dr Vinton Cerf, chairman of ICANN, said in a statement on the group’s Web site.
“That consideration had led a majority of the board to believe that the proposal should be rejected.”
The anticipated rejection of the .XXX domain had prompted the European Union to accuse the United States of political interference in the Web’s governance because ICANN currently reports to the U.S. Commerce Department.
“One of our board members said today in our meeting, and I’ll quote him, that this decision wasn’t a behind-the-scenes government move,” Serf told journalists in Lisbon.
March 31st | ICANN | Comments (0) |
ICANN Signs Contract for ‘.asia’ with DotAsia Organization
After the last agreement ICANN and DotAsia Organization, the sponsoring organization for the .ASIA top-level domain, announced the signing of the .ASIA Registry Agreement on 6 December 2006 at the ICANN Annual Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On 18 October 2006, the ICANN Board approved the designation of the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain and authorized the President to implement the Agreement. With the addition of .asia, 266 domain names now exist on the Internet. DotAsia is the first gTLD registry with a headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region.
December 10th | ICANN, Domain Names | Comments (0) |
ICANN approved .ASIA (Official)
sTLD Agreement with .ASIA (DotAsia Organisation Limited)
Whereas, on 4 December 5, 2005, the board authorized the President and General Counsel to enter into negotiations relating to proposed commercial and technical terms for the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) with the applicant, DotAsia Organisation Limited,
Whereas, on 18 July, 2006, ICANN announced that negotiations with the applicant for the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain had been successfully completed, and posted the proposed .ASIA sponsored TLD registry agreement on the ICANN website,
Whereas, the Board has determined that approval of the agreement, and delegation of a .ASIA sponsored top-level domain to DotAsia Organisation Limited would be beneficial for ICANN and the Internet community,
October 22nd | ICANN, Domain Names | Comments (1) |
ICANN Registry Services Evaluation Process (NEW POLICY)
ICANN has implemented a new policy that allows registries to submit proposed new services or changes to existing services without waiting for their contract renewal.ICANN announces the implementation of the process for review of new gTLD Registry Services and adoption of the Registry Services Evaluation Process. The effective date of the Policy is 15 August 2006. The implementation of this process includes an online tool through which gTLD registry operators and registry sponsoring organizations will be able to submit their requests for new registry services to ICANN.
October 3rd | ICANN | Comments (0) |
IANA Contact goes to ICANN again
ICANN just has been awarded the IANA contract again. The United States Department of Commerce has executed a new contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to continue to perform the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) function.
The IANA function includes Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, as well as root server system management functions.
“In executing this contract the Department of Commerce has confirmed that ICANN is uniquely positioned to perform this function,” said Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN.
The new contract for the IANA function is a five-year agreement, consisting of a series of one-year options. ICANN has held the contracts for this function since 1998.
August 18th | ICANN, Domain Names | Comments (0) |
United States cedes control of the internet
In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.
Having been the internet’s instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body.
However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net’s root zone file - at least in the medium-term.
“The historic role that we announced that we were going to preserve is fairly clearly articulated: the technical verification and authorisation of changes to the authoritative root,” Kneuer explained following an afternoon of explicit statements from US-friendly organisations and individuals that it was no longer viable for one government to retain such power over the future of a global resource.
August 8th | ICANN, Domain Names | Comments (0) |
Domain Name Marketplace Workshop June 2006
ICANN has announced a workshop on the Domain Name Marketplace for tomorrow at the ICANN meeting in Marrakech/Morocco.
http://www.icann.org/meeting…n-workshop-27jun06.htm
ICANN is organizing a 3-hour workshop as a first initiative to bring together a broad representative cross-section of ICANN stakeholders to share information about changes and trends in the domain name market.The workshop also is organized to help ensure that policy decisions and potential contractual amendments are made with an understanding of the broader impact that such changes may have on market activities.
June 27th | ICANN | Comments (0) |