ICANN finally made a decision to kill the .xxx application, with the Board voting 9-5 against it. In a bad sign for the future, the vote indicated that ICANN’s approach to top level domains will be to block any proposed that are politically or culturally controversial.
ICM registry responded by releasing a court decision which ruled that the Departments of Commerce and State failed to justify withholding documents that reflect the U.S. government’s role in meddling with ICANN’s consideration of .xxx, and ordered the government to turn over the documents or fully explain its failure to do so as part of official agency deliberations about the role of the U.S. government in ICANN’s approval of .xxx.
Last May, IGP provided detailed analysis of 88 pages of documents obtained by ICM under the FOIA showing how the U.S. handled the .xxx application up to that point. Even with the major redactions, the documents showed how US supervision of ICANN was influenced by domestic political pressure. They left no room for doubt that the US altered its policy toward ICANN in response to this pressure, and that it actively worked in tandem with ICANN to conceal the nature and significance of US governmental influence over ICANN from the media.
It will not be a surprise if these new documents reveal more behind the scenes pressure by the USG.