ICANN

A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ".xxx" domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.

Parents would be able to use the system to help block access to porn sites, though because its use would be voluntary, the ".xxx" suffix wouldn't keep such content entirely away from minors. Religious and other anti-porn groups worry that ".xxx" would legitimize porn sites, and the proposal has already been rejected three times since 2000.

Not only is the Internet just turning 40 years old, it's truly going global with new extensions that will someday make it possible for entire web-site addresses to be written in every language in the world. On Friday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers agreed to introduce a number of internationalized domain names. IDNs allow scripts such as Chinese, Korean or Arabic to be used in the last portion of an address name -- the part after the dot, such as dot-com and dot-org.

Nearly a decade after it introduced a program to internationalize domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is expected to take another step on Friday. ICANN, during its annual meeting in Seoul, Korea, will vote on the internationalized domain names (IDN) initiative, better known as the Fast Track.

The IDN initiative, if approved, will provide nations with their own country-code domain names and make the Internet more accessible to millions of people in Asia and the Middle East who speak and read in Arabic, Chinese and Korean, according to ICANN.

The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the expected approval this week of international domain names -- or addresses -- that can be written in languages other than English, an official said Monday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN -- the non-profit group that oversees domain names -- is holding a meeting this week in Seoul. Domain names are the monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post, such as ".com" and other suffixes.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has ended its decade-long arrangement with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The move gained applause from the European Commission, which had called for ICANN to consider a system run by the private sector.

The European Commission is making its message to the U.S. Department of Commerce loud and clear. Viviane Reding, European Union information technology commissioner, wants the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to separate from the U.S. department and discontinue its contract with the government when it expires in September.

For the past decade, ICANN has been dealing with top-level domains and managing the Internet address system that connects 1.6 billion Internet users. It has been working under an agreement with the Department of Commerce.

A sea change may be coming to cyberspace with Web addresses ending in anything from .a to .z. That has businesses increasingly worried they will have to spend millions to guard their brand names.

The familiar .com, .net, .org and 18 other suffixes -- officially "generic top-level domains" -- could be joined by a seemingly endless stream of new ones next year under a landmark change approved last summer by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, the entity that oversees the Web's address system.

Paul Twomey, chief executive of the Internet's key oversight agency since 2003, will step down later this year after a successor is named.

Twomey, 47, said he declined a three-year contract renewal with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, for fear of becoming "Mr. ICANN." Leaving now, he said, would let him take another leadership job in the private or international sector "and really make a difference in another organization."

The announcement came Monday as ICANN opened regular meetings this week in Mexico City.

Bids for new Internet addresses to rival ".com" and other suffixes will likely be delayed until the end of the year as a key oversight agency grapples with trademark and security issues.

Draft guidelines for the new suffixes generated so much comment that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, needs more time to sort out what it terms "overarching issues."

Late last fall, Microsoft servers came under attack from a particularly vicious worm called Conficker/Downadup. The worm may have been specifically written to exploit a vulnerability that Microsoft revealed in Security Bulletin No. MS08-067.

By mid-January, cybersecurity specialists estimated that as many as nine million computers had been infected. More disturbingly, even today as many as a third of the vulnerable servers have not been properly patched.