Brussels, 11/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - This Thursday 12 May, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes will meet a senior official from the American Trade Department, Larry Strickling, to discuss the governance of the internet and in particular, the missions of ICANN, the institution in charge of managing the internet. They will discuss such matters as the decision taken by ICANN in March of this year finally to approve the creation of a further extension (domain name) for adult content (.xxx), after several years of deadlock. Kroes hopes to take advantage of the meeting to discuss the reforms and transparency of ICANN. The commissioner will reiterate the position of the European Union as regards the functioning model it recommends for the internet, which is shared management by all key players, whereas the United States is believed to still exert strong control over the net. The meeting comes at a crucial time for ICANN. In June, at its meeting in Singapore, it is set to authorise a number of new domain names. In September, the IANA contract concluded between ICANN and the American government expires. IANA, which was created in the early 1990s, has the remit of preserving the central coordination functions of the internet in the interest of the community, but its missions have been scaled back strongly since then, with most of them having been absorbed by ICANN when it was set up in 1998. (I.L./transl.fl)