By DANIEL HICKS

Throughout history, politically powerful human beings carved up the physical world into nation-states. Almost everybody was assigned citizenship under a particular form of government or constitution. Now, history repeats itself in the virtual world with online domains like .com, .net, .org and .edu, and not everybody is content to play by the same rules of the past.

One of these rebels is John Tanzella, president and chief executive officer of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) based in Fort Lauderdale, yet operating in more than 80 countries. From its perch in Broward County, the 32-year-old IGLTA promotes all of the businesses with a stake in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender leisure, tourism and commerce. This segment of the industry is estimated to be a $70 billion market domestically.

Tanzella, IGLTA and organizations such as the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Centerlink and Gay Games have thrown their support behind a little-known outfit called dotgay LLC, one of four known companies around the planet who are vying for the rights to manage a new and emerging Internet domain, .gay. In order to obtain those rights, however, dotgay has the no small task of winning over decision-makers at the nonprofit authority overseeing the Worldwide Web known as ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

“Originally, dotgay reached out to organizations with a large footprint within the (LGBT) community,” said Tanzella. “It made sense for us to support them as a way to hone in on our audience as well as distinguish ourselves from the vast majority (of players in the space). And despite more and more mainstream corporations reaching out (to our market), it helps if gay and lesbian travelers could identify who is actually part of our community and who is not.”

Under the business model conceived by dotgay and an array of stakeholders, every .gay domain registrant would need to be vetted as part of the community through an authentication partner like IGLTA. This means that Delta Airlines (and others) could acquire a .gay domain because they are a member of IGLTA in good standing.

But this self-determination-style approach to domain management currently faces an uphill battle. In fact, dotgay faces a costly bidding war with its private competitors for the domain if it fails to qualify for a special “community priority status” set up by ICANN. Recently, an ICANN review panel denied dotgay’s application for the special status, questioning whether the definition of “gay” should encompass lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex individuals along with their straight allies (LBTQIA).

“As we celebrate gay pride, gay rights and gay marriage in our daily lives, it remains crystal clear that our language is not exclusive to homosexual men,” said dotgay’s Jamie Baxter. “In countries with anti-gay laws, the dispensing of criminal charges and punishment does not discriminate among LGBTQIA. ‘Gay’ provides a catch-all term commonly used and understood around the world and in the media.”

A final decision by ICANN to reconsider dotgay’s application for community status is expected in the next few weeks.

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