ICANN Approves ‘.asia’ Domain, Delays ‘.xxx’

The quasi-governmental organization that oversees the Internet has given tentative approval for a ".asia" Web domain to unify the Asia-Pacific community, but the group has delayed a decision on whether to move forward with a ".xxx" zone for pornography sites.

The new ".asia." domain would supplement suffixes available for individual countries, such as ".cn" for China and ".jp" for Japan. ICANN earlier approved ".eu" for the European Union; registrations for that begin Wednesday.

On more contentious topics, however, ICANN put off decisions. Before the meeting began last week, discussion of a voluntary ".xxx." domain for adult entertainment sites was removed from the agenda.

Reuters