According to http://www.icann.org/tlds/correspondence/esi-v-icann-13nov00.htm:Defendant
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") is a California non-profit
corporation with certain administrative responsibilities for technical management
of the Internet, derivative of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Plaintiff Economic
Solutions, Inc. has entered into a contract with the Central American country of
Belize to attempt to commercially market Internet domain names ending with ".bz,"
Belize's country code top level domain ("TLD") suffix. Aware that ICANN's annual
board meetings are to occur this week, plaintiff seeks a TRO enjoining ICANN from
establishing a new generic TLD of ".biz," ".ebiz" or any other designation which
would be confusingly similar to the ".bz" TLD.
Contrary to plaintiff's
initial understanding, ICANN represents that it has no authority to implement new
TLDs, and that instead, it merely makes recommendations to the Commerce Department,
which retains the ultimate authority to make such decisions. ICANN further represents
that before any such recommendation would be made, ICANN would have to successfully
negotiate a fairly complex agreement with the selected applicant.