The roadmap toward IPv6 moved forward slightly today as ICANN added IPv6 addresses to the appropriate files and databases on six of the world's 13 root server networks. "IPv6 will be an essential part (of) our future, and support in the root servers is essential to the growth, stability, and reliability of the public Internet," said the chairman of ICANN's Internet service and connectivity provider constituency, Tony Holmes. "The ISP community welcomes this development as part of the continuing evolution of the public Internet."

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met Wednesday as part of its consultation process with The U.S. Department of Commerce on the upcoming expiration of its agreement to co-manage the DNS.

Late last year a furor erupted among many countries who thought that ICANN was far too America-centric. Expect that discussion to heat up again after allegations have surfaced claiming government officials pressured ICANN to scrap the .XXX domain.

The five-year proposal for a .xxx porn domain "has been kicked into the long grass" just days before it was due to meet final approval, reports the Register. The Bush administration has opposed the new porn domain at the behest of the religious right, says the Register. The report speculates this has been kept relatively quiet, for fear of inflaming current global concerns about US control of the Internet. For that reason, "the US is desperate to make it look as though other governments are equally concerned about .xxx," claims the article.

The US vs. everyone spat over Internet governance seemed to have quieted with the recent agreement to keep things under US control. However, earlier this week a Dutch company announced a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com. A user also sends in this Email Battles story, which includes prior alternative registry experiments. To cap it off, the World Association of Domain Name Developers (WADND) has filed suit against ICANN and Verisign for alleged violations of antitrust, conspiracy, monopolization and price fixing laws.

"A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words," reports Reuters. The article includes a spat between ICANN and ICANN watch, the former saying such plans are the dreams of "pirates or con-men with something to sell"; the latter suggesting they could provide a "competitive check on ICANN."

Concerns this week that the EU would wrest control of the Internet from the United States have cooled - for the time being. Apparently a deal has been struck between negotiators from 100 countries and the U.S. that leaves true oversight in the hands of ICANN and the government, while creating a new world forum to discuss Internet governance issues. That forum would exist as a gripe-room, having no real authority over the Internet, according to reports.

We've been discussing for some time how the European Union and a number of other countries would be trying to wrest Internet Governance away from the United States at this week's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, which starts Wednesday. As Forbes notes, "The EU is proposing a formula that would remove US political oversight over ICANN and replace it with a purely technical intergovernmental body -- though not necessarily the UN - after a transition phase."

The Associated Press is reporting that ICANN and Verisign have settled their legal differences in a dispute surrounding Verisign's "sitefinder" initiative. That program guided wayward web-users who mis-typed web-addresses to their site, giving them an unfair competitive advantage, according to critics. Verisign can try and re-introduce Sitefinder, but it will need ICANN's approval.

American politicians are gearing up for a serious fight at next month's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, where it's expected the European Union - backed by a significant number of countries - will attempt to wrest Internet governance away from ICANN and the United States. Republican Senator Ron Coleman has introduced a new resolution in the Senate that would shore up support for the fight, in which the U.S. seems significantly outnumbered.

The European continues to issue warnings on what will happen if the United States does not share at least some Internet control with other nations, reports the Guardian. "We have to have a platform where leaders of the world can express their thoughts about the internet," insists the EU's Viviane Reding. "If they have the impression that the internet is dominated by one nation and it does not belong to all the nations then the result could be that the internet falls apart."

The BBC is fielding a report on the unwillingness of the United States to hand over any control of the Internet to either the UN, or a coalition of countries. With even the European Union standing in opposition, things aren't looking good for the United States as next month's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia approaches. "I am very much afraid of a fragmented internet if there is no agreement," warns the European Union's Web Commissioner Viviane Reding.

American politicians have consistently snubbed any idea of cooperative Internet management, be it by the UN or a newly created organization. The Guardian hints that such stubborn opposition to the idea by the U.S. may have steeled global support, which could lead to the United States being forced to hand over control to a coalition of countries.

The debate over whether to shift Internet governance from ICANN to the UN heated up again this week as the EU and U.S. sparred over the idea. For its part, the UN says it's ready for the responsibility. International Telecommunications Union head Yoshio Utsumi on Friday stated "We could do it if we were asked to."

Slashdot links to a Foreign Policy report on Iraq's attempt to control their own top-level domain. From the article: "In 2004, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, asked ICANN to free it up for the incoming Iraqi government, but the organization balked at handing it over, arguing Iraq was still too unstable. For months, ICANN refused to consider several requests by Iraq’s government for the domain’s return."

Five years of planning, haggling, and negotiating for the creation of a .xxx domain were recently derailed after the Commerce department objected; having received thousands of complaints from right-wing religious groups. This has again raised the hackles on many non-Americans, who suggest the United States should not have direct control over Internet governance (BBC).

With concerns over potential phishing e-mail scams it appears that ICANN will delay the expansion of domain names beyond non-English characters, reports the Associated Press (MSNBC). There has been much hype around a character system called Unicode, security experts however warn that characters that look alike can have two separate codes in Unicode. What that means is a site may appear to be the legitimate "Amazon.com" to the naked eye - but it's not, due to the similar looking characters in Unicode which could be a true scammers delight.

CNET's Declan McCullagh has more on the growing "international spat" over whether or not the UN should manage some - or all - of the Internet. He touches on a formal proposal for such a change that will be released July 18 (see preliminary pdf report). He also offers this link to a transcript of a recent closed door meeting in Geneva discussing what he dubs the "plot to dethrone ICANN". America's resistance to such an idea may result in what he dubs the "nuclear option": a fragmented root.

ICANN has approved the creation of the new .mobi top level domain. The domain is to be used as a content depository for mobile devices, though some think the move stifles innovation; in fact one of the web's co-fathers claims .mobi could have a "drastically detrimental effect on the Web". There are 1.8 billion mobile users in the world but only 12-14% have browsed the web via their phone, notes TechNewsWorld.

As we've mentioned, many countries would like to see control over the Internet shifted from ICANN to a less "America-centric" outfit like the UN's ITU. Elliot Noss of Tucows? Not a big fan of the idea: "We could expect to see the likes of Internet pioneer Vint Cerf replaced by some dictator's wife's third cousin." In March, CNET interviewed Houlin Zhao, director of the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. Should any part of Internet Governance be handed over to the ITU?