“I’m surprised it happened at all with all the objections going on,” Hustler President Michael Klein told XBIZ. “It’s unfortunate they decided to approve it.”
Klein said he thinks it’ll be problematic because it’ll create a ghetto for adult domains.
“It puts another level of frustration on legitimate companies without any benefit or generating any revenue for us. It’ll only generate revenue for the people behind it.
“But, we’ll do our best to minimize the damage.”
Paul Cambria, an adult industry attorney who pleaded to ICANN's board during Thursday night’s public hearing period to reject the sTLD, said free speech is the issue with .XXX.
"The .XXX designation is a content-based designation," Cambria said. "For over 100 years our Supreme Court has fended off any attack on 1st Amendment speech based on content.
"As long as speech is legal we don't grade it as according to content," he said. ".XXX would compartmentalize adult legal speech and that would serve as a crack in the wall for free speech.
".XXX would afford a step toward content-based categorization of otherwise lawful speech. It would also provide a very convenient tool for those who have the power to either censor or prevent lawful speech to be disseminated."
Kink.com founder Peter Acworth told XBIZ he also was disappointed by the ICANN decision.
“.XXX was opposed by virtually every group, including GAC and its supposed ‘sponsor,’ the adult industry. We at Kink.com are now faced with having to spend a significant amount of money defending our brands by purchasing ridiculously overpriced domains in the .XXX space.”
Mark Blazing of BlazingBucks also voiced his disappointment in the vote and agreed with Acworth and Hustler’s Klein, saying it will cost adult webmasters money.
"We are very disappointed in this decision to approve .XXX,” Blazing said.
“We feel this is going to impact us not only financially in having to secure our domains in the .XXX extension, but also in the potential regulatory practices that will most likely follow from this decision."
Evil Angel Productions general manager and FSC board member, Christian Mann, also voiced his disappointment, saying untold hours of work have been invested into stopping this initiative.
“Given the many compelling reasons presented so well by the .XXX opposition, which included the real stakeholders in the adult content community as well as governments worldwide, including our own GAC (Government Advisory Committee), the decision by ICANN baffles me,” Mann said.
“I’m not surprised as we knew we were facing pressure from forces with resources, money and questionable agendas. I realize that on the surface, the issues are complex which makes it harder to get people outside of the industry to understand the inherent risks.
“I had hoped that ICANN board members would have known better than to go along with this flawed plan. I was wrong about that. I also know that it’s too soon to see the fallout and whether or not there is still a challenge to be made.”
Mann encourages all concerned stakeholders to go to the FSC’s website where they can get information available about this topic.
“There are many battles yet to be fought and the FSC remains the trade association for any company or individual in the adult entertainment business,” Mann said.
