“The opposition already exists,” Shalton told XBiz. “I’m just helping to put a voice to it and give people a place to find information.”
Shalton said the goal of FightTheDotXXX.com is to show ICANN that “the industry is overwhelmingly opposed to” the adoption of the .XXX domain, despite claims from ICM Registry — the company selected by ICANN to act as official registry of .XXX URLs should the domain be approved — that there is a significant constituency within the industry that supports an adults-only sTLD.
“People have been taking a public stand against this from the beginning, and no one in the industry has taken a stand for it,” Shalton said.
Shalton isn’t calling for any specific action. He said conservative and Religious Right groups may have unwittingly accomplished more on behalf of the industry than the industry itself could have by undertaking a massive letter-writing campaign in recent months directed at lawmakers.
The White House responded by asking ICANN to delay approval of .XXX pending further consideration. However, the adult industry was not invited to comment further on the topic.
“I think every little bit helps,” Shalton told XBiz. “There are so many prongs of protest — the Bush administration, the Free Speech Coalition — this is just one other piece to collectively show that [.XXX] is a bad idea and ICANN needs to put it back on the table.”
