The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' proposed expansion of top-level domains -- such as .biz, .info and .us -- as well as the group's introduction of non-Latin language Web addresses are still "some months away," ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush told reporters Monday in Seoul, South Korea at the organization's 36th global meeting. He said ICANN officials and the Internet community at large are "going through a problem solving phase" to address concerns about potential malicious use, trademark abuse and other issues.

Thrush was hesitant to offer more specificity about when the first round of applications for new generic top-level domains would be accepted. The timing "is up to the community [and] when the community is satisfied, they'll tell us," he said. ICANN has argued that bringing potentially hundreds of new domains to market will benefit consumers and companies that do business online but intellectual property owners have expressed skepticism. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and others in Washington have been highly critical.

ICANN's board is poised to approve the related international domain name proposal when it meets on Friday. Thrush said that after several years of hard work by stakeholders, he was "reasonably confident that the board will find [the IDN plan] ready to launch." ICANN President Rod Beckstrom said the first non-Latin script entries into the so-called root zone would likely be in mid-2010.

During the press conference, Beckstrom also touched on the agreement reached earlier this month aimed at ensuring a permanent relationship between ICANN and the U.S. government. Under the arrangement, ICANN will create panels to examine such areas as network security and stability; the evolution of generic and international domains; and the continuance of a public database of Web site owners. An accountability panel -- the only one required to have a U.S. government representative -- is also called for.

The so-called affirmation of commitments with the Commerce Department is an "historic step forward" for ICANN and will allow the entity to become more responsive to the global Internet community, Beckstrom said. Much of this week's meeting will be spent discussing how the review teams will come together and how to proceed under a fairly tight timeframe. The first ICANN review is due in December 2010.