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ICM faces porn anger over .xxx
ICM Registry executives took the brunt of angry opposition to the .xxx top-level domain from pornographers at an adult industry trade show this week.
A two-hour session on .xxx, which took place at The Phoenix Forum in Arizona the day after ICM and ICANN signed their registry contract, saw the new TLD attacked on multiple fronts.
Defending, ICM’s Vaughn Liley tried to explain why .xxx isn’t as bad as many in the US adult industry believe but, on the back foot from a misjudged opening gambit (asking the openly hostile audience of pornographers if any of them supported child porn), often found himself adding to the confusion.
Now that .xxx has been approved and the contract signed, the discussion focused largely on how ICM and its policy body, the International Foundation For Online Responsibility, will actually function.
Pornographers wanted to know, for example, why anybody would want to invest in marketing a .xxx domain if IFFOR could one day make a policy that excluded their business from the TLD.
I get the impression that the pro-ICM speakers, which included Greg Dumas of GEC Media, could have benefited from having copies of the company’s policy documents in front of them.
At one point, Liley flatly denied that ICM plans to “spider” .xxx domains to enforce compliance with IFFOR policies, such as the prohibition on meta tags that suggest the presence of child pornography.
Minutes later, a .xxx opponent read aloud from the IFFOR policy (pdf) that says all registrants must consent to “automated monitoring”.
A semantic misunderstanding? Possibly. But it left Liley facing calls of “liar” from the audience.
The question of whether this monitoring will extend to, say, .com domains, if the registrant chooses to redirect their .xxx names, was left unanswered.
IFFOR policies will be created by a Policy Council of nine members, five of which will be drawn from the adult entertainment industry.
Earlier in the discussion, Liley denied that IFFOR’s board of directors or ICM will have “veto” power over these Policy Council policies, calling it “factually incorrect”.
Again, an audience member reading aloud from the IFFOR Policy Development Process document (pdf) showed that the IFFOR board has the ability to block a policy under certain circumstances.
Not only that, but ICM gets to object to policies that emerge from IFFOR, under certain circumstances. If this happens, ICM will work with IFFOR “to modify the Proposed Policy to address any concerns identified by ICM”.
There may be enough limitations on ICM’s powers to mean it’s not technically a “veto”, but it’s close.
It makes perfect sense for ICM to have this safeguard, of course. If IFFOR were to be captured by the haters, they could easily make mischief that could ruin its business.
Many of the other questions raised at the forum related to issues that will effect all new TLD launches and concern all new TLD opponents, such as brand protection.
My conclusion after watching the two-hour session: ICM needs to work on its messaging.
The company actually has several ideas for how it could help the porn industry make money, but you wouldn’t know it from any of its public statements to date.
If you have a free couple of hours, the video can be watched here.
The hell with ICM, there are enough new tlds coming
on the market to register sites without having to worry about blocking. What I thought was once a good ides is turning into a nightmare.
Kevin,
It is hard for ICM Registry to be heard over the shouts from the adult industry claiming economic devastation and unwanted intrusion and everyone else raging about an expansion of online pornography.
Both can’t be true; neither is.
Consider this: if it works, .xxx will help you find it and avoid it. In my view, anyway.
Cheers.
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