.xxx was majority rejected by ICANN in Lisbon today. .xxx died a rightful death today, and to those who tried to fuck us failed. a big fuck you to whoever tried to stab the industry with this.

Here is an article quoted from http://blog.domaintools.com by Jay Westerdal - VISIT THEM
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March 29th, 2007

Advanced word at the ICANN meeting tonight in Lisbon just came in. I understand that the board has voted down the Dot XXX proposal tonight. The board decided behind closed doors that the new TLD should not be added to the Internet root. It is a long standing tradition at ICANN to have the secret board meeting the night before the offical board meeting. ICANN skeptics and critics have been calling for more transparency for a long time, but ICANN continues closed meetings. The ICM Registry first applied for the Dot XXX domain back in 2000 and then reapplied in 2004 under the sponsored Top Level Domains (TLD) RFP. In June of 2005, the ICANN board determined that the Dot XXX application met all eligibility criteria for sponsorship and authorized ICANN staff to initiate contractual negotiations with ICM Registry. ICANN Board approved a final version of the agreement on August 1st 2005 and put the agreement on the agenda for a final vote for August 16. Several news stories hit the press and the US government came out against the new Dot XXX. The vote was put on-hold and a huge politcal game played out for several months. According to Stuart Lawley the CEO of ICM Registry, Vint Cerf, the Chairman of the ICANN board, approached him in March of 2006 and said ICANN would still be able to “pull the rabbit out of the hat”. Dr. Cerf indicated he would vote for the agreement and that he thought the board had enough votes to approve the agreement.

In May 2006, a few months and plenty of political pressure later, the board voted the application down 9 to 5. The ICM Registry knew Washington politics played a huge role in changing the vote count from January to May, so they filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Commerce and the State Department requesting all records and emails regarding the Dot XXX proposal. ICM also filed a reconsideration request in May. It took a while to be heard, but the staff came back, lead by Dr. Paul Twomey, and agreed that they would negotiate a new contract in exchange for ICM dropping the reconsideration request, which they did between October 2006 and January 2007. In January 2007, the new contract was posted and tomorrow the vote will be against the Dot XXX contract. The irony of the situation is that Dr. Twomey actual negotiated the contract but he is going to vote against it.

Breaking news also came in tonight while I was writing this story that that a US District Court in Columbia has held the Department of Commerce and the State have failed to justify withholding documents that reflect the US Government’s role in meddling with the ICANN process on Dot XXX. ICM Registry hopes to confirm their suspicions that the US Government interfered and changed the vote of the board. Dr. Vint Cerf went on the record with the Press in Wellington, New Zealand, confirming he was going to vote for it.