Paul Twomey heads ICANN, the Internet’s leading governor. ICANN meets this week in Wellington, New Zealand. He spoke to reporters briefly before the affair kicked off.
The deadline’s approaching to renew ICANN’s deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Nervous?
Twomey: This is just a step required by a very arcane piece of government procurement law in the United States. It’s business as usual that has not exercised us.
What’s happening with the push to create Web addresses that end in .xxx, a kind of red light district for porn?
Twomey: There has been quite a lot of discussion this week, our expectation is we’ll get some kind of feedback. I will leave it to the ICANN chairman to determine when a vote will be taken.
Won’t ICANN have to do this anyway, as a result of a recently-proposed U.S. law?
Twomey: That bill hasn’t come out of committee. It doesn’t have particular weight in terms of our processes here.