'Mr ICANN' will quit this year

ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey will leave the organisation when a successor is named. Photo / icann

NEW YORK - Paul Twomey, chief executive of the internet's key oversight agency since 2003, will step down later this year after a successor is named.

Twomey, 47, said he declined a three-year contract renewal with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, for fear of becoming "Mr. ICANN." Leaving now, he said, would let him take another leadership job in the private or international sector "and really make a difference in another organisation."

The announcement came as ICANN opened regular meetings this week in Mexico City.

As CEO and president of ICANN, Twomey has day-to-day responsibilities for an organisation tasked by the US government with overseeing policies on domain names, the internet addresses ending in ".com" and other suffixes crucial for computers to find websites and route email.

Twomey's contract expires July 1, but he said he will stay on until the end of the year to help the yet-unnamed successor with transition.

The decision comes as ICANN prepares to simplify procedures for adding domain name suffixes as alternatives to ".com," a move likely to spawn hundreds or thousands of new internet addresses in the coming years. ICANN also is close to allowing entire internet addresses to be in languages besides English for the first time.

Although Twomey said the temptation always remains to see such projects through, they are near enough to completion for a leadership change to make sense.

"Organizations need renewal, and that's a good time to do it," Twomey told The Associated Press.

Twomey said he had no specific plans but would consider other positions involving the internet or cybersecurity.

An Australian, Twomey is the organization's third chief executive since its formation in 1998 and the first non-American in that role. Before becoming CEO, Twomey was chairman of the organization's Governmental Advisory Committee, which serves as a liaison with governments worldwide.

Although ICANN still faces complaints that it is sometimes arbitrary, secretive and slow, the Marina del Rey, California-based nonprofit group has largely overcome questions about its authority, having withstood power struggles and ballooned in size over the years.

During his tenure, Twomey said, professionals began to take over tasks once run by volunteers.

Twomey's decision to leave comes a little more than a year after Vint Cerf, one of the internet's founding fathers as co-inventor of a key communications technology, stepped down as chairman of the organization.

"I can think of no other person who has had more influence on the course of ICANN's evolution than Paul," Cerf said in a statement.

-AP