ICANN Blocks Proposed .XXX Domain Extension

[bargainbloodhound]

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/tarm...2aug05.htm

Correspondence from GAC Chairman to ICANN Board regarding .XXX TLD

....
....I am omitting the specific TLD here because experience shows that some email systems filter out anything containing the three letters associated with the TLD.

[mandy]

"ICANN cannot delay this dumb idea often enough. The .XXX domain is nothing more than an Internet land grab for pornographers with no benefit whatsoever to parents

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050916/clf514.html?.v=3

[mandy]

The proposed .xxx porn domain has been kicked into the long grass just days before it was due to meet final approval.

ICANN chairman Vint Cerf stunned an open meeting of the governmental advistory committee (GAC) in Vancouver late on Tuesday when he announced that the whole issue had been pulled from the Board meeting agenda - where it had been the first topic of discussion.

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/01/...kills_xxx/

related topic: Family Research Council Urges US Commerce Dept to Kill .XXX Domain http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...444.0.html

[Kristijntje]

...top level domains

Senators renew call for .xxx domains

Controversial plans to create an Internet red-light district would be revived under a new U.S. Senate proposal.

On Thursday, two Senate Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana, introduced a bill called the "Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006." The 11-page measure would require the U.S. Department of Commerce to work with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that oversees domain names, to develop plans for a domain name system that would house material deemed "harmful to minors."...

"By corralling pornography in its own domain, our bill provides parents with the ability to create a 'do not enter zone' for their kids,"...

full article: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-60509...d.newsfeed

Related topic:
ICANN Faces questions of DoS/DNS Attacks and Porn as Meetings Begin in New Zealand
http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...184.0.html

[mandy]

As the ICANN’s week-long meeting in Wellington, New Zealand is now fully underway, the approval of the proposed .XXX top-level domain (TLD) continues to remain a key topic of discussion and its eventual approval yet uncertain. The .XXX TLD was widely expected to receive its final approval at the ICANN’s last meeting held in Vancouver about 4 months earlier but the discussion was unexpectedly delayed as the organization and governments requested more time to review the merits of setting up such a domain.

full article: http://www.circleid.com/posts/lastest_tu...ellington/

The chances of a ".xxx" domain for adult websites being approved at a meeting of Icann in Wellington this week appear to be waning, after a US government agency raised fresh concerns about the proposal.

A senior official at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in Washington DC told NZ InfoTech that it was concerned about differences between the original application for the.xxx domain and a draft contract now being considered by Icann, the international body that governs the Internet.

Canadian firm ICM Registry has applied for permission to set up and administer the red-light zone in cyberspace. It would charge webmasters $US60 to register a website with a.xxx address...

full article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3616...75,00.html

Schedule, agenda, and info on the ICANN Meetings in Wellington, New Zealand, 25 - 31 March 2006: http://www.icann.org/meetings/wellington/

[mandy]

U.S. Commerce Department Continues to Intervene in ICANN

ICM Registry, the proposer of the .xxx top-level domain for adult content, went into the Wellington meeting hoping for a positive decision after 8 months of delay. But in yet another effort to manipulate ICANN decisions in ways that will appease domestic political constituencies, the U.S. Commerce Department has sent a memo to the GAC chair claiming that "key commitments offered by ICM Registry to the GAC are not reflected in the provisions of the proposed registry agreement."

The problem is that DoC knows perfectly well why those commitments are not in the registry agreement -- it is because the registry agreement they are criticizing is not the final one...

full article: http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid...26/2128235

Adult domain taken off ICANN agenda

An influential committee within the internet naming authority says there weren't enough safeguards on a proposed adult entertainment domain.

The domain was due to be signed off tomorrow at ICANN's board meeting in Wellington but the governmental advisory committee has pulled the dot-triple-x proposal off the agenda.

The committee announced its decision at a public forum this morning, echoing the same problems raised in a letter from the US Commerce Department to the committee.

copy of US Commerce Dept memo sent to ICANN:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/kneu...0mar06.pdf

[mandy]

Update:

ICM Registry Submits Revised Proposed .XXX Registry Agreement
info pages: http://www.icann.org/announcements/annou...8apr06.htm

The revised proposal was submitted 18 April 2006 and ICANN will consider the proposal at a meeting on 10 May 2006.

Cover letter: http://www.icann.org/tlds/xxx/letter-fro...8apr06.pdf
Revised agreement: http://www.icann.org/tlds/xxx/revised-pr...060418.pdf

ICANN Forum Comments: http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld-agreement/

[mandy]

Update in the ongoing ICANN .xxx story: the .xxx TLD has been rejected again.

Faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography websites, the Internet's key oversight agency voted Wednesday to reject a proposal to create a red-light district on the Internet.

The decision from the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers reverses its preliminary approval last June to create a dot-xxx domain name for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry.

Paul Twomey, ICANN'S chief executive, said the decision largely came down to whether by creating an "xxx" domain ICANN might be put in a position of having to enforce all of the world's laws on pornography...

full article: http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-...technology

[jezebel]

Faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography websites,

at them being on the same side on this issue.

[mandy]

The never ending story continues.  The .xxx domain registrar has filed a lawsuit against the US Government:

The company behind the unsuccessful bid for a new .xxx domain for internet pornography, ICM Registry, has embarked on a legal fight-back.

ICM will file a suit against the United States Department of Commerce in the Washington district of Columbia later today, in order to gain access to information withheld by the department in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made back in October 2005.

That information will provide the "extra evidence that provides the irrefutable proof" that the United States government intervened in the issue to prevent .xxx going ahead, ICM Registry head Stuart Lawley told us. If true, it would also contradict public statements made by the Department of Commerce (DoC) that it "plays no role" in the day-to-day running of the internet...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/19/...overnment/