MARINA DEL REY, California -- Forget dot-xxx. The same goes for dot-kids. But dot-biz, dot-web and dot-union? Those new domains received preliminary recommendations Wednesday afternoon as the Internet's naming authority's board of directors gathered private and public feedback before officially choosing the next domain names of the future. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is expected to announce on Thursday which top level domains -- like dot-info, dot-web and dot-news -- will be added to the Net.

    

At its Wednesday meeting here, the ICANN board heard reports from its staff, constituent organizations and members of the public, including some who were participating remotely over the Web. Among the issues discussed: A staff report on TLD applications, a proposal to review ICANN at-large membership and reports from supporting organizations who help the ICANN board make fundamental decisions about the Domain Name System, Internet protocols and the numeric IP addressing system. The most detailed presentation was the ICANN staff's comparison report on all 44 TLD proposals. The report, presented by business, technical and legal experts, divided the applications into categories and made recommendations to the board. The preliminary winners: General purpose TLDs, like dot-web and dot-biz. The staff recommends selecting a few from the list, said Louis Touton, ICANN vice president and general counsel. Personal TLDs like dot-per and dot-nom. The staff recommended selecting a few. Special Purpose TLDs like dot-union, dot-health and dot-air -- the staff recommended choosing any or all. New Services TLDs -- the staff recommends dot-geo, which would employ geographic coordinates in domain names, from among this group. The preliminary losers: Resticted Content TLDs like dot-xxx and dot-kids. The staff said that due to filtering and free speech issues, establishing dot-kids and dot-xxx TLDs would be "premature." Telephony TLDs like dot-tel and dot-one. The staff said choosing from these would be premature due to complications related to international telephony treaties. The staff's analysis looked at the financial and technical plans of each application and then identified which warranted further review. But at least one board member thought too much attention was paid to the finances of the plans. "It feels like we're a venture capital firm and ICANN shouldn't be a venture capital firm," said ICANN board member Vint Cerf. "We need to find a way to extract ourselves from this process." But Touton said that it was important to choose TLD applications that that had business viability. "The dot-biz TLD is likely to have registrations in the millions," he said. "Because they will be used broadly, particularly by commercial interests, the negative effects of a problem might be dramatic." In addition to hearing the recommendations, the ICANN board heard a few mouthfuls from the constituency groups -- all of whom have a vested and keen interest in the proceedings. The Commercial and Business Constituencies, which represents more than 28,000 large and small businesses, had a list of wishes. Chief among them, it wants to make sure each new TLD keeps full records of the contact information (whois data) of domain-name registrants. It also wants a mandatory domain-name arbitration system to apply to any new TLDs. The generic Top Level Domain Constituency, currently comprised only of Verisign Global Registry Services, said the stability and expansion of the DNS should be top considerations. "The number one criteria should be to preserve the integrity of the Internet," said Roger Cochetti of Versign, adding that promoting growth should be the second priority. The Internet Service Provider Constituency also made stability of the Domain Name System a priority. In addition, they threw their support behind a joint statement of the Business and Intellectual Property Constituencies. Comprised of country code Top Level Domain managers, the ccTLD Constituency urged the board to keep new TLDs off their turf. "We urge ICANN to be very careful when establishing other TLDs that duplicate geographical regions," they said. The Registrars Constituency, comprised of companies that sell domains, supported the addition of new Top Level Domains. They also called for a standard-based approach to registrar and registry communications The Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency read from a series of resolutions passed earlier in the week. Finally, the Intellectual Property Constituency recommended against adopting a personal names top level domain like .per. They also submitted a list of 19 TLD applications that best matched the constituency's desire for better intellectual property protections. The board also heard from individual TLD applicants, but with only three minute for their presentations, little substance could be addressed. Chris Ambler, the founder of Image Online Design, said his company's bid to run .web was backed up by five years of experience. IOD has been running an unofficial .web registry for some time. Normally, a bomb-dropper in the world of TLD politics, Ambler struck a conciliatory note. His fans, however, pulled no punches on the chat board created for the meeting by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "Chris got their first, to begin with, which is the tradition of the Internet," said Judith Oppenheimer over Internet Relay Chat. "ICANN willingness to create a collision course with an existing, working .web is against everything the web stands for." In other business Wednesday morning, Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer, explained the staff's proposal to study the ICANN at-large membership process. Critics have complained that the membership process, which was used to elect five new board members this year, has been plagued by voting failures and a lack of representativeness. A total of only 130 people voted in the entire Africa region, for example. The various ICANN constituencies are divided regarding the role of the at-large membership and how it should be constituted. "It's clear that we have a lack of consensus," McLaughlin said. "The process for the study should be as open as possible, as inclusive as possible, and (move forward) with good guidance." McLaughlin the proposal would create an ICANN steering committee that would gather the efforts and research of ICANN constituencies and other communities contributing to the process.