CANOGA PARK, Calif. — The Free Speech Coalition this week sent a letter to ICANN declaring its opposition to ICM Registry’s application to sell .XXX domain names.
The letter, written by executive director Diane Duke, states,“FSC could not have been clearer, the adult industry not only opposes the ICM Registry application, but also believes that such a TLD would be detrimental to the industry as a whole.”
“FSC does not wish to add to your pressure, but a proposal for a sponsored top level domain that is not of the industry, with the added intent to regulate an industry it knows nothing about, is simply untenable.”
Duke encourages the board to settle the issue by going to the actual community to test the application’s true level of support.
In response to the letter, ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley told XBIZ, “The sponsored community is defined as those members of the online adult entertainment industry who believe a method of self identification would be beneficial and who are willing to engage in responsible self regulation in conjunction with other impacted stakeholders.”
Lawley says the application continues to see growing support from adult webmasters. But many in the adult industry say they want to see proof of this support.
“ICM claims to have letters of support from the adult industry in addition to more than 1,000 emails from adult webmasters supporting it,” Brandon, the CEO of t3report.com told XBIZ.
“This support has never been brought to light. Those that did give their support years ago, should be asked to present an updated show of support to ICANN. I believe this sTLD application does not have sponsored community support. Since ICANN has opened up the gates for gTLD, it would seem better to drop the sTLD application that has the most troublesome IFFOR component, and go with a gTLD.”
FSC’s letter continues, “We also want to stress that the current structure of IFFOR, the sub-organization that would set policies for all .XXX domains, is wholly unacceptable to FSC no matter the final verdict regarding sponsorship.”
Lawley says the IFFOR charter demands that all policies must be made for the benefit of the sponsored community.
“The IFFOR component is a sticky point for many because it imposes rules upon the use of .XXX. If an adult business wants to have .XXX then they know what they are getting into and know they have to follow those rules, along with paying a premium for the domain name registration. If a business doesn't want that level of control over their domain, then they wouldn't get the .XXX domain. But the IFFOR component is something that is just out right wrong,” Brandon said.
The .XXX proposal has many in the online adult industry worried that it would amount to the creation of a red light district on the Internet.
ICM Registry's proposal would make it the gatekeeper for the sTLD, requiring it to monitor registrant compliance with content site-labeling requirements.
