Feb 21, 2011 10:45 AM PST    Text size: 

The Brussels meeting is slated just prior to ICANN's Silicon Valley meeting in San Francisco where .XXX will be once again be weighed.

ICANN confirmed Monday morning in a web post that it will hold its general board meeting on Friday, March 18. At that time ICANN will likely vote on the .XXX proposal.

While not slated on the Governmental Advisory Committee's schedule, the issue of .XXX will likely come up during the two-day consultation meeting that plans to devote a significant time in the interest of resolving the outstanding gTLD issues.

The meetings are slated to be streamed live; however, as of Monday, the agenda and format for proceedings are still being finalized.

"It is the intention to publish the agenda before the meeting, along with briefing papers on the agreed topics for discussion," ICANN said in an announcement.

ICANN last December postponed a decision on an applicant guidebook that would serve as the framework for interested groups to manage new domain extensions called generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as .org, .com and .net.

There are currently 21 gTLDs, but when the Applicant Guidebook is green lighted the groups will be able to propose new extensions and apply for permission to manage them.

The Governmental Advisory Committee, or GAC, plans to decide on such key gTLD issues as trademark protection, malicious conduct, root-zone scaling, economic impact, geographic names and morality-based objections.