# ICANN Board votes against .xxx

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2007-03-30T23:31:21Z


The application by ICM for the .xxx sTLD has been rejected by the ICANN Board by a 9-5 vote in favor of a resolution to reject the application. Susan Crawford's comments on why she voted against this resolution echo my feelings. I have continued to vote in favor of granting .xxx to ICM and voted against this resolution to reject the application. ICANN is not chartered to be involved in trying to determine whether specific content is appropriate or not. ICANN should not be determining whether top level domains (TLDs) will solve the world's problems or not. We were asked to review an application based on whether the application met the requirements of the Request for Proposal (RFP). My view is that the applicant met the requirements of the RFP and that not granting the applicant their request for the right to run the .xxx TLD is wrong. If the RFP was wrong, this should be taken into consideration when thinking about the next round and not affect our current decision.

On the other hand, as a member of the board, I will respect the majority vote of the board. We have been working on this proposal for years and we have spent a tremendous amount of effort in trying to understanding the arguments and evidence presented to us by a huge number of parties. I urge the public and people who have not been tracking this issue not to over-simplify this issue and read Susan's comments carefully. This is NOT about whether we are for or against pornography. This is about the ICANN process and the role of ICANN.





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