YNOT – Former journalist Kieren McCarthy will assume executive leadership of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility in April, upon the departure of current Executive Director Joan Irvine.

McCarthy has served as the organization’s general manager of public participation since October 2011. Previously, he served as the general manager of public participation for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

“Kieren has immense experience in the internet infrastructure industry having reported on, and worked within, the industry for over a decade,” an IFFOR statement announcing the staff changes noted.

The same statement noted Irvine “will move to a consulting role,” working primarily on the organization’s new “Policy Engine,” a suite of for-profit services the organization plans to market to other registries approved to launch domains under ICANN’s new generic Top Level Domain, or gTLD, program. Irvine assumed IFFOR’s executive directorship in April 2011 after serving more than eight years as the chief executive officer for the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection.

IFFOR was established as a non-profit agency tasked with setting policy for the operation of websites in the adults-only .xxx domain space. The organization is funded by a $10 mandatory contribution from each .xxx domain registration. In 2012 alone, IFFOR collected more than $1.4 million in contributions, according to a statement ICM Registry filed with ICANN in September.

To date, according to Chairman Clyde Beattie, IFFOR has used its funding to pay staff salaries and directors’ stipends; fund directors’ and staff travel to board meetings, committee meetings and mainstream and adult-industry trade shows and conferences; establish and maintain a website; engage a public relations firm and website certification subcontractors; audit ICM’s compliance and reporting systems; pay legal expenses; develop and submit reports to ICANN for ICM, and produce marketing materials and briefing guides. In addition, IFFOR has funded two grants of $5,000 each for independent consultancies to study “online age verification and the abuse of newsgroups by those seeking child abuse images.”

The organization repeatedly has refused to divulge specific financial data even to stakeholders, according to TheDomains.com.

The Policy Engine service, launched late last year, resulted from what an IFFOR statement called “a strategic review of the organization after its first full year of operation.”

“The review found that IFFOR has fully established itself as an organization and won recognition for its policies and best practices,” the prepared statement noted. “It concluded that, going forward, IFFOR should embrace the emerging policy needs of thousands of new internet extensions due to be approved in 2013 and go live in 2014.

“IFFOR’s Policy Engine service will leverage IFFOR’s experience to provide pragmatic business solutions to industry-identified policy issues with the specific intent of strengthening the self-regulatory model,” the statement added.