key oversight agency

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.

The Internet's key oversight agency relaxed rules Thursday to permit the introduction of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new Internet domain names to join ".com," making the first sweeping changes in the network's 25-year-old addressing system.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers unanimously approved the new guidelines on the final day of week-long meetings in Paris. ICANN also voted unanimously to open public comment on a separate proposal to permit addresses entirely in non-English languages for the first time.