Although some reports suggested that the dot-xxx sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD) would be voted on at the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) international meeting, that will not be the case.
ICANN board chairman Vint Cerf told AVNOnline.com that while there is an informational item on the agenda, there will be no vote.
“I expect further input from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) while here and I want time for the board to absorb and analyze that input. However I do expect to be able to schedule a vote before the next face-to-face meetings in Marrakech,” Cerf said.
During their Vancouver meeting in December, ICANN removed dot-xxx from the agenda after the GAC requested more time to review a report, which they say was not submitted in a timely manner, from sTLD sponsor ICM Registry.
While dot-xxx is essentially on hold in Wellington, it has come to the forefront in the U.S. Senate. The Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006 was introduced by Senators Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) nearly two weeks ago. The bill would force the Department of Commerce to work with ICANN to fast track a TLD specifically for adult content, i.e. dot-xxx, and make it mandatory.
This isn’t the first time the government has sought to challenge the autonomy of ICANN. Late last year the U.S. Department of Commerce sent a letter to ICANN asking the organization to delay a vote on dot-xxx. ICANN, which was facing a groundswell of opposition from numerous sources, complied. The U.S. government has also denied repeated attempts by the United Nations to move control of the Internet’s root servers, which house the web’s TLDs, to international hands.
Despite a history of U.S. government tampering, ICANN president Paul Twomey said the measure will have no effect on ICANN’s decision-making process.
“That bill hasn’t come out of committee. That’s the first procedure obviously, but it has no particular weight on our processes here,” Twomey said. “The GAC is who we look to for public policy advice and that sentiment, we expect, will be represented by the United States government representatives in the GAC. That’s the procedure we follow.”
Although it could make dot-xxx a reality, ICM released a statement disagreeing with the mandatory nature of the Cyber Safety for Kids Act and pointing to the autonomy of ICANN.
“While we are gratified that the Senators seem to understand the value of ICM Registry’s proposal, we are concerned that the legislation ignores the fact that ICANN was established as a privately controlled, international organization and not as the arm of any government,” it reads, in part.
ICANN’s next international meeting will be June 26 through 30 in Marrakech, Morocco.
