On April 1st, ICANN signed the Registry Agreement with ICM Registry for .XXX. ICANN General Counsel & Secretary, John Jeffrey followed up on the singing by explaining the delicate nature of the contract with ICM Registry in a blog post.

ICM Registry filed its application for the .XXX domain extension (gTLD) in 2004 and initially had it approved by ICANN in June 2005, only to later have it denied. The triple-x domain name has been a controversial topic in the ICANN community as well as leaders in the adult community for which it is proposed to serve. After seven years of waiting in line, ICM Registry, the registry operator for .XXX, finally made it through the ICANN process.
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The ICANN Board approved the .XXX domain name extension and adopted a new timeline for the New gTLD program last Friday at its regularly scheduled meeting of the ICANN Board held in San Francisco.

ICANN carefully decided to proceed with the execution of the .XXX new domain extension on Friday at its board meeting and published its rationale for doing so along with the adoption of the resolution.

In an effort to push the New gTLD process to the finish line, ICANN also adopted a new working timeline for its new gTLD process. According to the timeline pictured below, ICANN has set its sights on approving the Applicant Guidebook at a special meeting of the ICANN board scheduled for June 20th 2011. Generally, ICANN holds a board meeting following the conclusion of the public meeting, however, this time the organization has scheduled a special board meeting to kick off the 41st ICANN meeting form June 20th – 24th in Singapore. Peter Dengate Thrush, the current Chairman of the ICANN Board, expects a huge party in Singapore for the official kickoff of the New gTLD program.
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ICANN posted a revision of its Proposed Registry Agreement with ICM Registry on its website today for the public to evaluate. ICM Registry, the applicant behind the .xxx top level domain, has been working towards obtaining the TLD since it first applied in 2004 in answer to ICANN’s call for Sponsored New gTLD proposals. The ICANN board rejected previous versions of the Proposed Registry Agreement, but after and independent review panel declared the rejection of the previous proposals as flawed, ICANN began to move forward in negotiating with ICM Registry.
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ICANN’s 38th International Public Meeting held in Brussels, Belgium during the week of June 20th thru 25th was full of a lot of the same; a lot of New gTLD talk related to trademarks and timelines, and the usual WHOIS accuracy meeting. But still, the looming question on everyone’s mind; “When are we going to see New gTLDs?” was not clearly answered.

Well, one new gTLD, or so it would seem, is ready to hit the main stream fairly soon. The ICANN Board of Directors approved .xxx at it’s board meeting on Friday, June 25th 2010. The Board accepted the the findings of the Independent Review Panel and reconsidered the application for .xxx. A review will be done to ensure that no significant changes have taken place and begin contract negotiations. Finally, ICANN will involve the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) to make sure the contract for the new adult TLD is inline with the comment received from the committee.
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After missing the Nairobi meeting due to ICANNs assessment of possible security issues, we were very eager to kick things off with the Welcome Ceremony Monday here in Brussels, Belgium. Unfortunately, we weren’t greeted with the same exciting cultural performances we were able to catch only brief glimpses of during our remote participation and live blogging during the Nairobi meeting.
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The 37th ICANN Meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya concluded in usual fashion today with the meeting of the ICANN Board. Today’s meeting of the Board was of exceptional importance to both the ICANN Board and the ICANN community. The Board met in total transparency as the community waited to see how the Board would be accountable for issues related to not executing the .xxx contract. Likewise, perspective New gTLD applicants anxiously awaited the Board’s decision on the EOI/Pre-Registration Process.

In total, the Board voted on eight (8) resolutions related to the implementation of New gTLDs. This could be an indication that the ball is rolling again, and perhaps ICANN is reaching consensus on a lot of key issues relating to the launch of New gTLDs.

Here is a breakdown of the chief issues discussed and the decisions that were made at Friday’s board meeting:
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