ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom resigns

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has announced his resignation. Beckstrom will retire upon the expiration of his current contract, which will be in July 2012.

Beckstrom does not give reasons for his resignation, stating only that "managing ICANN… imposes a colossal burden of responsibility."

Today, ICANN is formally independent, although it is partly funded by the US government.

During Rod Beckstrom's tenure as head of ICANN, the organization took numerous steps to protect the domain name system, including implementing the secure DNSSEC system in a number of domain zones.

In addition, during his leadership, the .XXX domain zone for pornographic resources was introduced, and the New gTLD program – an extension of top-level domains – was adopted.

ICANN's latest decision has proven controversial. Many organizations are protesting ICANN's decision, claiming it will negatively impact the internet.