In June, ICANN announced the appointment of Thomas Spiller as its new Vice President for the European region.

I've never met Thomas, who is described as a "French national" in ICANN's press release, and was set to take over management of the organisation's Brussels office.

At the time, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said that "the new position is vital for global expansion and deepening of ICANN."

That may be, but Thomas won't be taking care of the expanding and deepening. Although there has not been an official announcement (and from what I hear there won't be), I have learned that he will not be joining ICANN after all.

Why? I have no idea. But it does seem a pity for the ICANN community. It would have been great to see ICANN opening up to more Europeans…

Kevin Murphy reports in El Reg that the first of a new breed of websites has gone live. What's significant about the site is that it is an adult site that uses a .XXX address: Casting.xxx.

The Register article explains that the domain was awarded as part of .XXX registry ICM's Founders Program. "It's actually a perfect example of a Founders site," ICM president Stuart Lawley is quoted as saying. "It's a generic name... but with a special niche in the .xxx world."

Please be warned that the site shows extremely explicit content. 

It's not quite at News Of The World level, but expect the word "scandal" to be bandied around the ICANN community in the next few days. The news that ex Chairman of the ICANN Board Peter Dengate Thrush (PDT) has joined a new gTLD consultancy firm will no doubt cause a few teeth to grind.

In fact, just hours after it was made public, I was seeing tweets like this "Peter Dengate Thrush votes for new TLDs at #ICANN, then joins a company which sells them..." or this "A clear case of conflict of interest, it does not help #ICANN nor new TLDs."

The bitterness is understandable. PDT was in charge of the industry's regulatory body for most of the implementation phase of the new gTLD program. His drive to get it approved before his term as Chair ended (in Singapore on June 24, just 4 days after the Board approved the new gTLD program) was relentless. Getting there meant upsetting a few people who felt PDT's intransigence left no room for any views but his own.

No doubt those people will now join in a chorus of criticism and smug "oh now we understand why he was in such a hurry to get new gTLDs done!" comments.

As amazing as that may sound, ICANN is keeping to its schedule! The new gTLD Applicant Guidebook was published on the target date of May 30, 2011.

This version is considered final. So if ICANN can weather the continued opposition from some groups with particularly strong lobbying skills, then its Board will be voting to approve the new gTLD program during a special meeting on June 20 in Singapore.

Could this really be the home stretch?

The ICANN unofficial timeline for the launch of the new gTLDs seems to be on track. A planned teleconference between ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and the Board happened yesterday (Friday May 20) on schedule.

Unofficial reports say the meeting was very positive, although differences of opinions are still said to exist on trademarks.

The next major milestone will be May 30, when the final Applicant Guidebook is scheduled to be posted.

An extra GAC/Board meeting, not featured on the timeline, has been confirmed for June 19, in Singapore. The day before the planned final meeting of the Board to give the program its official green light.

Then ICANN CEO Paul Twomey with French minister Eric Besson at the Paris ICANN meeting in June 2008.

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom will be in Paris next week to meet with Eric Besson, French minister for the digital economy, as part of the e-G8 summit being held over 2 days, on May 24 and 25.

Besson met with Beckstrom's predecessor, Paul Twomey, when Paris hosted an ICANN meeting in June 2008.

Besson and Beckstrom will no doubt discuss new gTLDs and the role of governments in Internet governance.

Preparing for an ICANN meeting has now become a full-time job for many participants, from ICANN Staff to the numerous volunteers that contribute to the bulk of the ICANN processes.

The preparations for one of the 3 yearly International Meetings start as soon as the previous one is over, sometimes even before that. A full meeting planning team is in operation at ICANN, but input is also required from the Supporting Organisations (SOs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) that make up the ICANN structure.

As the body responsible for setting generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) policy, the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organisation) is part of that planning. At each meeting, we work on our own agenda and strive to meet the deadlines set for its publication. We interact with the other SOs and ACs as everyone tries to fit into the increasingly busy schedule that is an ICANN meeting week.

It is as part of this preparatory work that we have learned that the GAC/Board discussions on new gTLDs that started in Brussels in February and continued at the San Francisco ICANN meeting in March are set to once again disrupt the normal business of community discussions and policy development that is the raison-d'être of an ICANN meeting.

Websites are reporting that Kenya's government has announced its intention to block .XXX. This was precisely one of the fears opponents of the adult entertainment domain voiced in San Francisco, where .XXX was given a definitive go-ahead by the ICANN Board.

Kenyan Communications Secretary Bitange Ndemo was quoted by www.xbiz.com as saying "We are not going to allow .XXX in this country. It's actually a certificate for people to watch pornography."

It remains to be seen what effect the wholescale blocking of a TLD will have on the way the Internet works, if any.

In related news, www.domainincite.com reports that the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes wrote a letter to US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke on April 6, 2011 asking him to wait before adding .XXX to the Internet root.

The Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet of the US Congress has called a hearing into ICANN's new gTLD program for Wednesday May 4, 2011.

Considering who has initiated this, no-one will be surprised to see much of the proceedings centre around trademark protection.

What may be more surprising to some is that representing ICANN in front of the US congressmen attending the hearing will be Kurt Pritz. Although Pritz is ICANN's Senior Vice President of Stakeholder Relations and the man in charge of the new gTLD program, most would probably have expected Rod Beckstrom, the organisation's CEO, to take centre stage.

Instead, it appears that Beckstrom will not even make an appearance. Many will no doubt be surprised by this as when ICANN was heard by the House of Representatives in June 2009, then-CEO Paul Twomey went to Washington in person.

The reason for Beckstrom deciding not to go may be due to his past links to the US administration (he was US cybersecurity tsar in 2008) and a desire not to see those colour this hearing…

A criticism that I often hear of ICANN is that it is a toothless body with no real ability to regulate the domain name system.

A couple of recent episodes seem to indicate that ICANN actually takes enforcing rules very seriously.

There's this letter from ICANN General John Jeffrey to .JOBS registry Employ Media. The language of the letter is totally unambiguous. ICANN feels that Employ Media has usurped the responsibility that it was given to build a TLD that would "serve the needs of the international human resource management community" in a way that instead appears to "exclusively serve the financial interests of Employ Media".

It had been promised for April 15… It's out on April 15th!

The new DAG (Draft Applicant Guidebook) is out. This shows both the incredible amount of work ICANN Staff is putting into getting this program finished and that the June 20th date for green-lighting the new gTLD program is one that ICANN really wants to keep to.

Read the new DAG here.

Following final approval at last March's San Francisco ICANN meeting, the newest Internet domain's roll-out has started.

Dot XXX registry ICM had already announced details of the adult entertainment domain's sunrise periods and launch program.

Now comes the news that the domain has been activated at the root and is therefore fully functional, as evidenced by ICM's new website address.

As of today, there are 22 active generic Top Level Domains on the Internet.

Most ICANN registrars are members of the Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG), their official representative body. Although membership is not compulsory for ICANN-accredited registrars, it does carry several advantages.

RrSG members have regular meetings with ICANN policy, compliance, finance and registrar liaison staff. They are able to vote to elect representatives on the GNSO Council, ICANN's policy-making body for generic Top Level Domains. They engage with Law Enforcement Agencies, registries and governments, while working on industry best practices and exchanging information to continually improve the service registrars provide to their customers.

With the recent events suffered by Japan, RrSG members are banding together to provide help where possible. See the following announcement below from the RrSG Executive Committee.

ICANN Registrars Provide Assistance to Registrants in Japan

Many ICANN-accredited registrars are implementing special emergency registration provisions to assist their customers who were impacted by the last week's earthquake and tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan.  Special domain-related services include enhanced procedures for making changes to domain name DNS records, alternative hosting arrangements, and allowing automatic or emergency renewals of domain name registrations.

Implementation details vary, so affected registrants should contact their registrar directly to learn what special measures are being offered by registrars to protect customer domain names from accidental expiration or transfer.  Most registrars are providing extended support coverage and alternate customer contact methods to ensure that domain names continue to resolve and customer websites remain operational.

Was asking Bill Clinton to speak at ICANN San Francisco (for a reported $250,000 fee) a good idea?

For the domain name system, for the unique governance model that ICANN represents, as a spotlight for the key issues that model is currently dealing with – How to integrate governments with being taken over by them? How to spread the Internet to non-English speakers or writers? How to maintain technical stability while continuing to support the ever-increasing demand for network resources that innovation continues to drive? – the media interest generated by Clinton's visit alone probably made it worth it.

About 1,000 people heard him speak in the main ballroom at the San Francisco Westin on Union Square on Wednesday March. They thought he was enthralling enough to hear that they cheered when he walked on stage, and had given him two standing ovations by the time he left it.

As for me, well obviously in this case I can't give an unbiased opinion. When I started in the domain names industry, I never thought it would lead a small time entrepreneur from Paris like me to this. Meeting Clinton was an honor. Simple as that.