The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the top-level domain .xxx for pornography websites. ICANN made the announcement at the annual meeting in San Francisco. The idea for these top-level domains have been around for almost a decade and it was approved briefly in 2005. Adult websites won’t be forced to use the .xxx domain names. It will make it easier to filter and block adult websites from kids. [BusinessInsider]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) President and CEO Paul Twomey will be stepping down at the end of 2009.  Twomey decided not to renew his contract for another three years.  He announced this at an ICANN meeting in Mexico City.  Twomey said he wanted to “move on to another leadership position in the private or international sectors.”

Twomey will remain on board until a successor is named and will be around until July 1.  ICANN is in the midst of adding many more new domain name suffixes.  ICANN is in charge of overseeing all domain name rules as selected by the U.S. government.  Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internet stepped down as chairman of ICANN about a year ago.

“I can think of no other person who has had more influence on the course of ICANN’s evolution than Paul,” stated Cerf.

[via AP]