IXXX Company Profile

ICM Registry first put up the.XXX TLD in 2000, and it was reintroduced in 2004. However, lawmakers and conservative organisations vehemently opposed it.

On June 1, 2005, ICANN announced its preliminary acceptance of.xxx as a sTLD comparable to.aero,.travel, etc. ICM stated that domains would cost $60 per year. The future of.xxx was put in doubt after discussions about its implementation were removed from the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee’s (GAC) agenda in December 2005. The GAC wrote a letter of concern to the ICANN board regarding.xxx at their meeting in March 2006. ICANN rescinded the approval on May 10th, 2006. Following modifications to the ICM registry’s policy, including the enforcement of any website that registers to utilise the.xxx registry, ICANN released a new proposal for public discussion on January 6, 2007. The third time the.xxx proposal was rejected by the ICANN board was on March 30th, 2007.

In accordance with ICANN regulations, ICM submitted a request for an independent review of ICANN’s decision to the International Centre for Dispute Resolution on June 6, 2008. In September 2009, a live hearing was held in Washington, DC, when both parties presented supporting documentation and witness testimony. The filing was given the ICDR Case No. 50 117 T 00224 08 designation. The independent review panel for the ICDR, which was composed of Stephen M. Schwebel, Jan Paulsson, and Dickran Tevrizian, released its declaration on February 19, 2010.

The.XXX sTLD application “satisfied the required sponsorship criteria,” the panel determined, and “the Board’s reconsideration of that determination was not consistent with the application of impartial, objective, and fair written policy.” A decision to investigate “process options” was made by the board during the ICANN meeting in Nairobi in March 2010. On March 26, 2010, a 45-day public feedback period began. The ICANN board decided to recommence the procedure, including additional due diligence and GAC consultations, at the Brussels ICANN conference in June 2010.