Domain veto garners little support

The U.S. government’s demand for a veto over the creation of new top level domain names has apparently fallen on deaf ears.

Legislators were hoping that governments — including the U.S. administration — would be allowed to block the creation of controversial top level domain names, like .xxx and .gay.

The Obama administration was subjected to a fair amount of criticism when the proposals were first announced and many domain name commentators urged the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) not to bow to international pressure.

Last week,the proposals were rejected by the GAC, which suggested that nations could offer non-binding advice to ICANN, but could not put pressure on the international body.

The new ‘scorecard’ is set to be discussed further by stakeholders before it is implemented.

Commenting on the GAC’s decision, a U.S. Commerce Department spokesperson told CNET: “The U.S., along with many other GAC members, submitted recommendations for consideration and as expected, these recommendations provided valuable input for the development of the new scorecard.”

The U.S. Commerce Department is also pressuring the GAC to implement a more trademark holder-friendly domain name dispute system.