U.S. Wants Governments To Be Able To Veto Proposed Generic Top Level Domain Names. Other Countries Not So Much.
You may remember that we recently described the new procedure for obtaining generic top level 
domain names. ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has proposed a new procedure to allow additional entities to act as domain registrars. Included in this was the opportunity to propose an infinite variety of domain extensions and not be limited to the ones heretofore approved (and originally suggested) by ICANN.
Now, the U.S. government has proposed that each member of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to ICANN have the right to object to any proposed extension and if a "consensus" of the GAC members is obtained, then ICANN will not approve the domain extension and will refund the fees paid by the applicant. This supposedly is designed to limit the award of "objectionable" domain names such as .gay or .xxx or anything else that any GAC member's citizens feel runs counter to some aspect of their society or religion. So, in addition to .gay, a really depressed nation might object to .cheery, .jolly or .festive. And, in addition to .xxx, a nation might find .xoxox objectionable if they hate football coaches, tic-tac-toe players or post script huggers and kissers.
The U.S. proposal has not been warmly received by the other GAC members and in a response supported by a majority of the other GAC members, the GAC has recommended that the GAC's role be limited to advisory only and if ICANN goes against a GAC recommendation, ICANN's only requirement is to explain its position.
It is plain that this will not be the last we hear of this matter and much more discussion will be had when the actual applications come rolling in.
