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ICANN delays decision on pornography domain

.xxx must wait. Yet again

ICANN has delayed its ruling on the proposed .xxx internet porn domain until this summer.

Today, at its meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, the ICANN board voted to push a decision to its next get-together in Brussels this June, while giving its CEO and chief counsel two weeks to prepare recommendations on how to proceed with the .xxx proposal. These recommendations will then be open to comment for 45 days, the AP reports.

In 2005, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the net's overseeing body - approved a longstanding proposal for a top-level domain dedicated to pornography. But after opposition from various governments - including the US, natch - it went on to reject the proposal on three separate occasions.

The last rejection came in 2007, but in recent weeks, an independent panel of judges ruled that the organization was wrong to do so. The 2007 rejection was "not consistent with the application of neutral, objective, and fair documented policy," the panel said.

The ICANN board is not obliged to follow the panel's decision, and in a blog post following the decision, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom made a point of saying that it was not unanimous and that there was ample public opposition to the .xxx proposal.

Under the proposal, porn sites would not be required to use the .xxx domain, and if they did use it, they could continue use other domains as well. The top level porn domain was first proposed by ICM Registry LLC in 2000, ®

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