Internet regulator ICANN has agreed to reconsider an application to protect the ‘.gay’ domain, after fears it would be sold off.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) handles the creation of new top level domains (TLD) to rival .com and .org – for example the recently-created .scot in Scotland, which led to the launch of PinkNews.scot.

However, the body was criticized in October when it refused to hand over control of the ‘dot gay’ domain to the LGBT community at large – and put it up for auction to a number of commercial bidders.

ICANN has this week agreed to re-consider the domain for the ‘Community Priority Evaluation’ process, after admitting to flaws in the first process.

In a rather dense 32-page ruling, ICANN’s Board Governance Committee wrote: “The BGC concludes that reconsideration is warranted.

“ICANN discovered in the course of investigating the claims presented in this request that the [Community Priority Evaluation] Panel inadvertently neglected to verify some of the letters submitted in support of the Application.

“This conduct is in contradiction of an established process.

“Accordingly, the BGC has determined that the CPE Panel’s Report will be set aside and that new evaluators will be appointed to conduct a new CPE for the Application.

“The BGC also recommends that the [Economic Intelligence Unit] include new members of the core team to assess the evaluation results.”