Unlikely bedfellows block internet porn

A bid to create a virtual red light district on the internet has been blocked by a "coalition of the unwilling" consisting of unlikely bedfellows the United States, Australia and Iran.

The internet's governing authority, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), was to have held a final vote on creating a .xxx top level domain for adult content online at its conference this week in Wellington.

However, Icann's government advisory committee (GAC), Government representatives who report and advise Icann on public-policy issues, has forced the issue off the agenda by insisting the proposal needs more work to protect the public interest.

The GAC argued that a range of restrictions and protections against illegal and offensive material made in initial undertakings by .xxx's backer, ICM Registry, were absent from the contract Icann's board were proposing to ratify.

Furthermore, "several members of the GAC are emphatically opposed from a public policy perspective to the introduction of a .xxx STLD (sponsored top level domain)", the committee said yesterday.

Internet New Zealand president Colin Jackson said he was confident it was Government representatives from the US, Australia and Iran who were most opposed to .xxx.

"It's kind of ironic that you've got a kind of coalition of the unwilling here working together to block this thing."

Jackson said it was unfortunate that Icann's vote on .xxx had been delayed by the stalling tactics of Icann's Government representatives after the proposal had initial approval.

"We don't have a formal position on the morality of having a .xxx domain. That's not for us to say, but we do believe strongly that if you've got processes, they should be followed, and you shouldn't have Governments trying to overturn them or work outside the process."

Some commentators, including former European vice-president Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel, have said a failure by Icann to resolve the .xxx issue in Wellington would demonstrate the undue influence the US Government has over the body. That would rekindle calls for Icann to be replaced by a more neutral body, she said in a letter to Britain's Financial Times.

Jackson said: "The US Government does, ultimately, have some measure of exceptional control over Icann over and above other Governments."

However, he hoped this week's events in Wellington would not lead to renewed pressure on Icann to relinquish its governance of the internet.

"The alternative is a UN process which is extremely difficult and expensive to navigate and, frankly, has very, very poor accountability."

Jackson believed Icann served the global net community reasonably well.

"It has an ideal of being an open, transparent, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder body. Unfortunately, I think it has fallen rather short in a couple of things recently.

"For all its flaws, it's still a lot better than essentially handing over control of the internet to a large intergovernmental bureaucracy."