The Battle over Porn Continues
 

The US-based ICM Registry, miffed at the quashing of the proposed .xxx Internet Porn domain, has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Commerce alleging that the latter intervened in the consideration of the porn proposal by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and brought political pressure on the body, so as to have the proposal nixed.

A Freedom of Information demand has been filed by the Registry against the US Department of Commerce. To this, the chairman of ICANN, Paul Twomey, has responded calling the allegations of political interference as "ignorant".

The ICM Registry says that while no reasons have been attributed to the withholding of documents regarding the porn proposal, the US Department of Commerce does not have any regulatory authority over ICANN, which was conceived typically as an independent organization free of administrative control or political influence by the US or any national government.

Apparently, ICM's action is a fall-out of complaints received from several European Union (EU) representatives that the US administration has unduly interfered in ICANN's decision making process, resulting in the .xxx domain being voted out by the ICANN Board by a 9 to 5 vote.

That there was extensive lobbying by conservative groups in the US for the Commerce Department to block the proposed domain is well known. However the battle is soon threatening to spiral out-of-control, as it assumes proportions larger than just a mere fight for a porn domain!

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is planning on renewing its exclusive contract with ICANN, which only reflects the government's belief in ICANN as the sole entity capable of managing the Internet's domain name system.

However nothing can be said about the international implications of such a move, with the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and the European Union having for long resented the US Commerce Department's so-called oversight of ICANN's work.

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...355&cat_id=643

This is quite the sticky situation... hope the madness ends soon!

money is the root of all evil. not porn.