In its memo dated March 13, ICM claims to have gone “well beyond what was reasonably required in reference to its application.”
The memo comes on the heels of the Board’s concerns, which were raised at the last ICANN meeting, that ICM doesn’t have the strong support of the adult webmaster community.
ICM sets out to demonstrate the support of the sponsored community by stating 76,723 .XXX adult website names have been pre-reserved since June 1, 2006; 1,217 adult webmasters from more than 70 countries have registered on ICM’s site saying that they support .XXX and wish to register a name; and close to 300 additional webmasters have emailed ICM since June 1, 2005, requesting information about .XXX registration.
In identifying the opposition to its proposal, ICM said that a few hundred webmasters have “attempted to manipulate the public forums to overstate the size and significance of industry opposition.”
In polling data it submitted with its application in March 2005, ICM informed the Board that approximately 20 percent of the industry opposed .XXX — a significant minority.
Regarding the opposition to .XXX, Lawley said its existence is not relevant or legitimate to the review process, comes too late in the game and contradicts how other proposals for sTLDs have been approved.
ICM referenced the XBIZ Hollywood Conference in its memo, stating that adult webmasters “affirmatively misrepresented their strength” in describing the forum because there were many empty chairs.
ICANN General Counsel John Jeffrey noted at the last ICANN meeting that the most recent public comment period — Jan. 5 to Feb. 5 — saw more than 600 public comments and more than 55,000 emails. According to Jeffrey, nearly all of the emails, which were sent from a website campaign, expressed opposition to .XXX by using a form letter. Of the public comments, 488, or 77 percent, opposed .XXX.
“There has been a lot of misinformation and in some cases disinformation, surrounding this application,” ICM President Stuart Lawley told XBIZ. “We have always tried to put forward the voluntary nature of .XXX and the benefits to the industry of being seen to attempt to self-regulate in conjunction with the other impacted stakeholders. Nothing has changed in this regard from the outset.”
