The campaign is designed to precede a Sept. 15 meeting among ICANN officials when the issue of the approval of .XXX will be revisited. At that time, letters from the adult community will be presented.
The FSC has made available a pre-written letter where webmasters can fill in a few fields of information and send the letter off, make changes to the letter, or write a completely new one.
“Contrary to statements made by ICM Registry and others, the overwhelming majority of adult entertainment companies do not support the creation of .XXX,” the FSC said.
The FSC has already contacted ICANN officials on several occasions over the past weeks and months to express its opposition to the creation of .XXX and to restate its concerns regarding the legitimacy of the application submitted to ICANN by ICM Registry to create and run the controversial domain.
“We ask any and all members of the adult entertainment community who believe, as we do, that .XXX is a bad idea that will not work, to visit our site and take 60 seconds to register your opposition,” the FSC said. “It is important to let ICANN know that responsible adult webmasters already exist, and that we resent the implication that adult websites that do not purchase and abide by mandatory .XXX policies are by definition irresponsible.”
On June 1, ICANN provisionally approved the creation of .XXX, concluding a nearly five-year struggle for ICM Registry to get its application approved.
According to the FSC, Jason Hendeles of ICM first submitted an application in 2000 to ICANN to create and control an adult TLD. That first application was not accepted by ICANN, but he tried again in 2004 with partner Stuart Lawley, only this time it was for a sponsored domain, which requires, according to stipulations put forth by ICANN, that the applicant establish “significant” support within the industry the domain is intended for.
Webmasters interested in participating in the letter campaign can go to the FSC’s “Fight .XXX” website.
For those who have already signed up at FightThedotXXX, there is no need to duplicate the effort by submitting a letter through the FSC site.
ICM representatives were not available for comment at press time.